PM Mitsotakis in weekly review: European elections may be over, but message is not

The European elections may be gone, but not their message, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on his weekly review of the government's actions, posted on Facebook on Sunday.

Referring to the elections on June 9 that saw high abstention rates and unexpected lower returns for the major parties, Mitsotakis said, "The ballot box may be a thing of the past now, but its message is not," underlining that the government will speed up its work, particularly in terms of high prices for consumers.

Among the government's work in the past week, the premier mentioned the low taxi and coffee take away/delivery VAT that was made permanent, noted that market inspections will increase in number, noted the 33% emergency tax on excessive profits by refineries would go to the most vulnerable, and underlined the speeding up of hirings in the civil sector by the testing and hiring agency ASEP (Supreme Council for Personnel Selection) through more digitized processes.

In the public health sector, he said that a joint ministerial decision (KYA) was signed to implement a preventative program for colorectal cancer relating to 2.8 men and women aged 50-69. It includes free diagnosis, including a biopsy if needed.

The program to support tourism in Thessaly and Evros areas affected by the storm 'Daniel', government interventions to protect domestic violence victims, and managing fires before they spread were also noted by the PM. In the latter case, Mitsotakis said another 700 firefighters for forest fires were hired, the units of immediate action ('forest commandos') units in forests were raised from 6 to 16, and 25 state-of-the-art drones were available for operations in the Attica Region. He also called on all citizens to "help in the national effort to protect our forests and to follow directions, particularly on high-threat days, to prevent setting fires through negligence."

PM Mitsotakis concluded his posting by congratulating the Greek athletes who took part at the European Athletics Championship in Rome (June 7-12) and at the European Aquatics Championships in Belgrade (June 10-23), underlining that their next stop is the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris (July 24-August 11).