PREVEZA – Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Friday attended an event for the inauguration of a bypass around the town of Amfilochia, commenting that this will cut journey times for those travelling to Vonitsa, Preveza, Palero and the island of Lefkada by at least 25 minutes. The bypass is on the Aktio-Amvrakia road that connects these areas with the Ionian highway.

“After very many years we will inaugurate the Amfilochia bypass, which will be opened to traffic today so that you can save at least 25 minutes, those of you travelling from the Ionia [highway] toward Vonitsa, Preveza, toward Palero, toward Lefkada. [It is] one of the many significant developmental projects that is being carried out in a Greece that is changing,” Mitsotakis said in Aitoloakarnania, during his first stop on a tour of western Greece.

“I want to give you my personal assurance that we will continue to work with even greater zeal, with even more energy until the end of the four year term to support the citizens, to support Greek regions, to implement our programme in full, and in spite of the very great difficulties we encountered, to again present to the Greek people for their judgement a full governmental programme at the end of the four-year term that will allow us to ask them for their trust once more,” the prime minister added.

He stressed that Greece was changing and changing fast, changing for the better to become a modern, European country with great developmental potential that viewed the future with optimism. He emphasised that credibility and relations of trust in politics were built on a consistency between words and deeds.

“Our government has put this pact of truth at the centre of our political speech,” he noted, adding that when the government took over in 2019 a great many projects were essentially stalled, caught in the grip of Greek and European bureaucracy, and that a lot of work had been done to allow them to progress.

Regarding the bypass opened to traffic on Friday, he said it was part of an important project for western Greece that would be delivered fully in 2023. “The importance of this project for the region is self-evident,” he pointed out, highlighting the improvement in road safety, especially. He also noted that it was just one of many in Western Greece, such as the Patras-Pyrgos road that he said would probably not have begun if the present government did not have such good credibility in Brussels.

The event was also addressed by Infrastructure and Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis, the Western Greece Region governor Nektarios Farmakis and Evangelos Mytilineos on behalf of the contractor.

The bypass delivered on Friday – five months ahead of schedule – is a road measuring 17 kilometres that forms part of a larger project for a road of 49 km. The contract for the project was signed in November 2020 and it is scheduled to be delivered in 2023.

The prime minister will continue his tour of Western Greece by visiting the towns of Vonitsa, Preveza, Igoumenitsa and the archaeological site of Nikopolis.