A key point will be the agreement between the
country and the European institutions, an agree-
ment that will have to be reached in a few months
from now. It will become the basis for the country’s
strategy in regard to the debt — at least the part of
the debt that, according to the agreement, will be
deemed to be sustainable. Such an agreement will
succeed in releasing the resources required for
drafting —at last— a proper public investments
budget, as well as for achieving an increase of
financial flows from the NSRF, the EU’s structural
funds, as well as new funds. These funds can and
must be created either for growth, or as part of the
Juncker plan, or through specific investment initia-
tives, with European assistance.
In such a new economic environment, the inde-
pendent resources of local governments should be
increased. Also imperative is the full independence
of local government budgets and balance sheets, on
the basis of democratic planning and democratic
participatory budgeting. The purpose is to provide
local governments of both levels with the ability to
manage the resources provided by the state, as
well as those created through the services they
offer, and establish a growth-inducing environment
that will become one of the pillars for developing
the priorities of the country’s productive recon-
struction.
In this new and much more extensive ministry,
which could be called the “Ministry of the
Population”, our top priorities in regard to the new
Immigration Policy portfolio is the serious stream-
lining, in regard to its institutional and citizenship-
related parameters, of Europe’s new strategy for
dealing with the serious problems brought to the
foreground by migration flows, as well as other
problems.
Apart from these policies, which will be implement-
ed by the Ministry of the Interior
per se
, mention
has also to be made to a completely new —and,
sadly, old for the rest of the European Union— per-
ception regarding the crucial issue of waste man-
agement in Greece. This perception will be based
on the implementation of EU directives on recy-
cling and waste minimization, which are a far cry
from the plans regarding the creation of “pharaon-
ic” mixed-waste processing facilities, and we hope
that, quite soon, both the regional and municipal
governments will draft a complete and comprehen-
sive state-of-the-art plan.
In general, we can say that our government’s
recent programme statements include all institu-
tional interventions, emphasizing on a social prob-
lem that has emerged and grown to gigantic pro-
portions in Greece. Namely, that we are on the
verge of a humanitarian disaster; that we have 1.5
million unemployed; that, each day, many children
are forced to quit school or experience the anguish
of everyday survival; that the brain drain is already
a reality. Of course, it also has to do with the degra-
dation of urban living conditions or the contraction
of social structures, which were kept alive only
thanks to the solidarity and volunteerism of thou-
sands of citizens all over the country, as well as the
assistance provided by municipalities, regions and
institutions. This is the most crucial issue for the
country. The bridge agreement that was reached in
regard to the first four-months of our government’s
term, offers the necessary elbow room for imple-
menting the first measures of the humanitarian —
and not only— pillar of the Thessaloniki programme
and, above all, enables us to prepare and lay out
the timetables for major reforms in the field of
administrative restructuring, as well as the fields of
institutional revision and reinforcing the society; a
society, which is already in the fifth year of hardship,
with unexpectedly tragic effects, i.e. the impover-
ishment, and the degradation of the living condi-
tions of, households all over the country.
We are certain that the confidence shown by the
Greek people in this different, new programme for
the revival and social rescue of the country is a
great resource, a great weapon for persuading,
after a hard debate, our European partners that
such an alternative strategy and policy must be
supported — in contrast to the austerity policies; in
contrast to the policies that led to loss of at least
25% of Greece’s GDP; in contrast to the policies
that led to thousand of business shutdowns and the
decline of the, anyway feeble, Greek social
state.
Trade with Greece
9
