ATHENS — The issue of the digital vaccination certificate for those citizens that have completed their vaccination against COVID-19 starts on Friday, Digital Governance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis said on Friday in an interview with SKAI TV.

As he said to Athens-Macedonian News Agency, "the whole process from the appointment for the first dose to the issue of the certificate is held digitally."

Pierrakakis also noted to ANA that "the digital certificate is secure, it cannot be forged and bears a digital seal."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday participated in an online discussion organised by the Nueva Economia Forum of Spain.

"My first concern when I came to power was to renew the party, but also to lead it far from populism," he said and stressed: "In the first 18 months he had to manage many successive crises. We had to face the pandemic like of course any other European country, but also its economic consequences."

He noted that "in Greece we did quite well, since we are one of the countries that had the best results in terms of the management of the pandemic. At the same time, we are trying to seize the opportunities offered through this difficult period of the pandemic to implement structural reforms that will make the economy competitive, create new jobs and reduce income inequalities."

He added that "although our main concern is tackling the pandemic, we have also tried to ensure that the reform programme that was part of the current government's programme and includes tax cuts, attracting investment, transforming the public sector to make it more functional, digitisation of the state machine and green transition will not stop."

He expressed the optimism that with the right operational tools "we will leave behind the pandemic sometime in the spring or summer of 2021."

Moreover, he referred to the importance of the vaccination certificate he has proposed in order to have a common way of certification, although it is not a passport, in order to facilitate traveling and boost tourism with safety.