ATHENS – New Democracy “remains the dominant political force in Greece – the second and third party are lower than our percentages,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Tuesday at the discussion he had with former Italian PM Enrico Letta in the framework of the 28th Annual Economist Government Roundtable.

“We had obviously set a goal corresponding to that we had in the European elections of 2019,” Mitsotakis said at the Glyfada Golf Club “Konstantinos Karamanlis”, referring to the European elections in Greece. “We did not meet it, but I take the messages by citizens very seriously. Of course there was some exhaustion due to the continuous elections, this led to abstaining also. But there were also a lot of citizens who utilized European elections to convey a message, mainly in term of the cost of living, which is at the top of our agenda. At the same time, however, the European elections did not change the fundamental political dynamics,” Mitsotakis added.

The PM continued, to say that in the national elections of 2023, New Democracy received 41% of the vote, and “we succeeded in showing that there is a center-right party that attracts a lot of citizens, and people who self-identified as right-wing and progressives of the center became allies under this roof, and that was not something sure for other European parties, which led us to a very strong parliamentary majority. We have four years with a strong mandate to implement reforms. In the first term, we had to stabilize the country, and I think we succeeded.”

Mitsotakis underlined that the goal of his second term is to reduce the gap with Europe. “We will press on in support of a reformist agenda; (national) elections will be held in 2027, and we shall be judged by the result of what we achieved at the end of the four years. We have a fresh mandate to promote powerful reforms,” he added.

Enrico Letta, on his part, said that he believed Marine LePen would be different from Giorgia Meloni. “Yet I remain optimistic,” he said. “Five years ago we were talking about who will follow Britain in leaving the EU. Today there is no such issue,” the former Italian prime minister said, commenting on the results of the first round of snap elections in France.