“Welcome to them,” said the President of the Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou, welcoming Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the Presidential Palace, accompanied by 26-year-old Konstantinos Rozis, who is monitoring the work of the Prime Minister during DUOday 2021.
“Madam President, hello. Let me first introduce you to Konstantinos who accompanies me all day today as you know. “Yesterday we had a DUO DAY and it is an opportunity for young people with special skills to come to workplaces, to see how we work and today I have him with me all day so I thought it was a good idea for you to come and meet him,” said Mr. Mitsotakis. “Opportunity to meet him too”, answered Ms. Sakellaropoulou.
“It is very pleasant the visit of Konstantinos today, Madam President, he sees what a workplace means”, Mr. Mitsotakis continued and Ms. Sakellaropoulou noted: “I learned that he also attended the meeting you had”.
The Prime Minister added: “Of course, he attended the meeting we had with the French Foreign Minister, then he attended a presentation we made with the Minister of Digital Government as from today citizens will no longer have to go to the KEP and the Greek Police for to certify the authenticity of the signature, this will be done digitally.
I explained to Konstantinos why this is so important and how much time we save both the citizens and the public administration, and now we have the pleasure of visiting you. I explained to him that every month the Prime Minister comes and visits the President of the Republic to inform her about current developments. And of course, Madam President, the developments this month also concern the front of the pandemic. As you saw yesterday, I had the opportunity to make a series of additional announcements about the policy that we will follow from now on, at least until the Christmas holidays. I think it is very important to send a single speech, a single message from the government as the people are justifiably worried.
The central message that I conveyed yesterday and which also serves the measures we have announced is obviously that we need to turn our attention to older citizens because they are more at risk, to convince those who have not yet been persuaded to take the first dose and to encourage – because there the de facto effort is easier – those who have done the first two doses to do the booster, the third dose, so we determined that in seven months the vaccination certificate will actually expire, although I believe that those who have taken the first and second doses do not need much encouragement to take the third dose.
At the same time, we have imposed some additional restrictions on our unvaccinated fellow citizens, thereby encouraging them to step in and be vaccinated. I would like to inform you that in recent weeks we have had a significant increase in interest for both the first dose and the booster dose, this became even more pronounced after yesterday’s announcements, and I believe we will make significant progress in the coming weeks to further strengthen more the wall of immunity. At the same time, we support the structures of the National Health System with all the forces at our disposal, we proceed to order services where necessary, in the first phase in northern Greece, we are in full cooperation with the private sector, essentially creating a unified National Health System. which includes both public and military and private structures, and I believe we will overcome this wave as well. And the appeal I make again and in the context of the visit is that we do not have unnecessary deaths. Unfortunately, Greece is not in the vaccination rates that some other European countries are in, we are close to the European average but we can be much better. “And the higher the vaccination rates, the lower the number of hospitalizations and the lower the number of unnecessary deaths, and we will not tire of insisting on supporting the vaccination program, and I want to thank you for the enthusiasm with which you always convey the message of vaccination.”
Taking the floor, the President of the Republic stated the following: “First of all, I am very pleased, Mr. President, for the presence of Constantine here today, in the heart of the Republic is the principle of the welfare state and is the protection of all our fellow citizens, and those who have some weaknesses or belong to a vulnerable group. We must ensure that everyone has equal access, everyone has some virtues that they must have the opportunity to prove. “So the important thing is for our society to give us the opportunity, to include us all, and this small symbolic move is real – and I’m very glad to know him and have heard so much about him and his foreign policy skills from what I have learned.” .
Katerina Sakellaropoulou then spoke about the vaccination, stating the following: “Now, about the vaccination, I was honestly thinking these days that the words have dried up, what else does one have to say. A gift really came to us in such a dystopian situation that we experience and as if we reject it. And I wonder and I think those people with whatever influence they have on those around them, they prevent them, they forbid them, they do not urge them to be vaccinated, how they coexist with it when they actually lead them to danger of life, many times even death.
Some are to blame for everything that is happening and I would like to join you once again in calling on this, this supreme show of solidarity, to convince everyone, all of us, without if, without style, without thinking about politics cost, without turning a blind eye to possible other political benefits or I do not know what else it is or hesitations, all ruthlessly to support this thing, vaccination, is the only way we have. And I want to believe that we can do it. “
The Prime Minister took the floor again and noted: “What is interesting, Madam President, is that in recent weeks, almost 400,000 of our fellow citizens have taken the step of making first-date appointments. And they did it now, they did not do it a few months ago. This means that we must not give up. On the contrary, both the skeptical and the cautious and the one who can be influenced by some, I consciously used yesterday the word charlatans, who say things that are in complete contradiction to the scientific data we have at our disposal, and these fellow citizens we believe that they can be persuaded by a web of arguments from one and a more difficult reality that they will be called upon to face if they choose to remain unvaccinated. So there is virtually no hard line between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, and the unvaccinated I think we have the ability, at least a large percentage, a large percentage, not all, to persuade them to take this step.
I would also like to inform you very soon that during my trip to the United Kingdom and the meeting I had with the British Prime Minister I raised the issue of the return, the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures, the return to their natural space which is not other than the Acropolis Museum. I stressed that this choice of the government to raise this issue is not a temporary tactical move, it is a choice that will have strategic depth and I even mentioned and joking that a prime minister who has as much love for Classical Greece as Boris Johnson , will be the first who should rush to adopt this project. It will be a long way, but I believe that we have a strategy and a plan so that finally this great national effort that has started many decades ago will at some point succeed “.
The President of the Republic said for her part: “Mr. President, I watched them with great interest. From the 80’s, in ’84, in ’86 it was set by Melina Mercouri. It is always a national request, it is always supported with more or less intensity. And recently, as you know, in addition to the recommendations, UNESCO also took a decision in which it takes a clear position that Greece has the right to claim the reunification of the Parthenon marbles. We all remember Melina who said that “even if I die I will be resurrected to see them return”. I think that Melina would not let us give up this fight, it is a difficult fight, all this entanglement is supposedly legal whether it is a matter of the government or the museums, but I think that little by little things are clearing up. The issue is not simple. I have retained another phrase of Melina, it has remained very intense to me, it had charged me then. And he had said, because Melina always behaved like that, “the marbles will come back and it will be noon”. And I say now this afternoon to be some to see this but in any case for the next generations it is worth fighting I think and you do very well “.
“The battle is a battle at the level of government, at the level of a British museum but also at the level of British public opinion, which I believe is being trained …”, said Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Katerina Sakellaropoulou noted that “the climate has changed”.
“British public opinion is increasingly being educated and is now beginning to strongly support this demand,” he added.
.
