“I believe that last Sunday the Greek men and women in the most emphatic way asked us to move forward quickly, steadily, boldly. And we need to do this more in a ministry that in previous years has shown that it really is another Greece that we want, a Greece that is more modern and more efficient with less procedure, less suffering for the citizens” emphasized the new Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitris Papastergiouduring the delivery-receipt ceremony, which as he jokingly said “is probably the most popular ceremony with so many people, of course Trikala also helped a little”.

The new minister underlined that “the responsibility I am taking on following the Prime Minister’s proposal is enormous and I will not hide from you that although the feeling of joy exists, there is also a sense of sadness because I am leaving behind almost 20 years in self-government. Of course, this experience can help us to “run” many other things related to local self-government”. As he characteristically said, the previous leadership of the ministry “did almost everything, luckily… they didn’t have time to do some”. “We should very immediately “run”, advance what has been promoted and of course also look at new areas, such as artificial intelligence, new challenges, such as cyber security and how we will be able to protect ourselves more fully, real estate transfers, the patient file , gov.gr with 1,534 services to reach 5,000. The magic word is “trust” and how will we be able, through digital governance, to let the citizens understand that finally there are people, structures, infrastructures that think 24/7 for them”.

In closing, he said “I don’t forget my eternal love, self-government” and noted: “The 90 million euros from the Recovery Fund and the 232 million from the NSRF will be directed to projects that municipalities need.” Finally, he thanked the Prime Minister, speaking of a proposal “that honors not only me but the entire local government that has been digitized to a very large extent these years and shows that it can stand much more effectively on the side of the citizens because Greece is changing, becoming a modern country.

For his part, acting Prime Minister Sokratis Katsikas emphasized: “I am particularly happy to have received the Ministry of Digital Governance from a person with deep knowledge and I am handing it over to a person with deep knowledge. During the caretaker government we did not deal with any particular issues except for the issue of cyber-attacks on the Issue Bank of the Ministry of Education, which we dealt with successfully”. He stated that he was particularly pleased with the cooperation with the officials of the ministry, whom he thanked. Referring to the work of the caretaker government, he pointed out that “several projects were not stopped and other actions were able to proceed without politically binding the next government” and underlined that “the bar is high but I am sure you will pass it, all the prospects are excellent” . Joking in fact, he handed over an informational note stating the urgent needs of the ministry and a stick with all pending matters and the priorities of the ministry.

“We must continue the already very important work that has begun. Digitization has changed our lives, everyone lives it individually through their own role, profession, their own daily life. And so the more simple things in our daily lives are digitized, the bigger the challenges for us” pointed out the new Deputy Minister of Digital Governance, Konstantinos Kyranakis. Continuing, he noted that “this excellent work basically comes from the executives of the public administration, from the employees of the ministry themselves. It is vital to continue in this direction, to use all our forces to be able to bring results for the Greek citizen”. Concluding, he characteristically said “a few words, a lot of work and we hope for a good result”.