Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday referred to the building up of a "national self confidence" with which the country has addressing developments until now, in his opening speech to a meeting of ruling New Democracy's parliamentary group.

The prime minister referred to developments in Greek-Turkish relations and focused on the resumption of exploratory talks, saying that Greece welcomes "this resumption of talks after many years because of the security provided by international law and the safety provided by our defence, well versed in our arguments on the sole issue that essentially causes great tensions in our relationship with the neighbouring country, the delineation of the maritime zones in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, but also with hopes that are grounded in reality and without delusions that will fall into the void," he said.

He expressed his satisfaction with the productivity of the government and the parliamentary group in 2020 "not only for the number of the bills passed but also with the way that parliament and especially ND's parliamentary group functioned.

The prime minister referred to to the government's efforts to address the pandemic, adding that the good epidemiological data of the last weeks allowed the reopening of retail stores on Monday.

Mitsotakis also said that over 80,000 Greeks have been already vaccinated against COVID-19 and the second round of the vaccination, namely the second dose of the vaccine, started today, with his own second vaccination on Monday morning. "I want to repeat that Greece is ready to significantly increase the number of vaccinations but we are still depending on the number of vaccine doses we receive from the companies via negotiation we have done with the European Union and obviously the more vaccines we receive the faster we can proceed with the vaccinations.

Finally, he announced that new secretary of ND's parliamentary group is Yiannis Bougas, who was unanimously elected.