“Kostas Simitis left a strong mark. He is an emblematic personality of the post-colonial era. He bound Greece even more solidly to the European chariot”, State Minister Akis Skertsos said to ERT, among others, about the loss of the former prime minister.

He also said that there were mistakes and that what the rector should do is to respect the dead and to look more soberly at what he did and what he didn’t do.

“There is a backlog regarding the modernization of the country. The Mitsotakis government is moving in this direction, of convergence with Europe”, he added.

Regarding the presidential election, the Minister of State said that the time is approaching for the Prime Minister to open his papers. “There is no room for instrumentation. The President of the Republic must unite the citizens”, he underlined.

In a question about private health contracts, Mr. Skertsos said that the battle for income support is ongoing and on many fronts. He referred to the picture on food inflation and specifically on health insurance premiums, he said that we are talking about a subcategory of insured people who have long-term multi-year contracts and it is estimated that they are around 250,000. Mr. Skertsos said that announcements will be made by Mr. Theodorikakos and in any case the government’s priority is to improve competition. “The interventions that will be made will have a direct effect for 2025 as well as other interventions that we made such as those in the banking sector. They will be specific, aiming to improve competition without jeopardizing the capital adequacy of insurance companies. Anyone who talks about a ceiling puts the Greek market outside the European context,” he noted.

“PASOK may ask some questions or highlight issues, but the solutions it proposes are impractical and unfortunately follows the tradition of SYRIZA”, he added after a related question.

Regarding housing, he said that the closed properties are close to 700,000 and there is a big plan underway to open them. He noted that policies should be implemented that enable them to renovate their properties so that they can be made available for long-term leases, while he also spoke about the possibilities given to those who convert the properties they lease from short-term leases to long-term leases. “It is a package of measures that reaches half a million citizens,” he said and estimated that at least 100,000 of the 700,000 properties will be opened within the next two years. He also referred to the institution of social compensation with the aim, in the first phase, to put 300 public properties into use throughout the country.

For tomorrow’s cabinet meeting and the action plan for 2025, Mr. Schertsos said it includes 460 emblematic political goals.

“Greece has submitted five requests, has disbursed resources for 4 of them and is among the first five countries in Europe in disbursing and absorbing resources from the Recovery Fund,” he said at another point of the interview. “What the Court of Auditors says about Greece is true, to a greater extent, for other countries,” he added.

For the measure of banning alcohol for minors when the anti-smoking law is not sufficiently observed, Mr. Schertsos mentioned that it is a constant battle and especially for the anti-smoking law he said that it is applied until 12:00 at night. “Alcohol needs a change in the way we regulate and supervise prohibition. We will transfer the responsibility to the Greek Police and there will be more severe penalties for the shops which will even go as far as closing them. We will also give control to the shopkeeper”, he noted.

At another point in the interview, the Minister of State, referring to health, referred to the decisions to support health personnel with a significant increase in resources compared to 2019. “We attach great importance to the NHS. It is also the support of the citizens to reduce the expenditure on private health services. It is support for the most vulnerable and based on the OECD, private spending in Greece has started to decrease,” he added.

For the farmers he said that the better taxation and the better pricing for the agricultural stream were satisfied. “We are in a better phase than we were a year ago. And here we need to do more. We managed to have a trade surplus. Greece must be an international export economy”, he noted.

Regarding the possibility of restructuring after the presidential election, he replied that “these are questions you will ask the prime minister, I cannot answer such a thing”.