ATHENS – The digital governance ministry supports the vision and strategy adopted by the labour ministry, Digital Governance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis said on Friday at an event organised at the labour ministry for the upgrading of electronic services offered by its social insurance and employment agencies to citizens.

Pierrakakis highlighted three points regarding this collaboration and the way the government plans digital transformation and services to citizens, while stressing that digital transformation was essentially social policy, helping those that had the greatest need:

“Firstly, technology is at the centre. Momentous events in the last three years with respect to digital transformation, as experienced by citizens, are the 112 message, the e-prescription message and the vaccination message,” the minister said, noting that it was right to use every form of both older and new technology (call centres, sms, platforms) to facilitate citizens.

As a second point, he highlighted the “comprehensive, 360-degree” strategy adopted to cover services to the citizen using every available means, adding that “the prime minister’s orders are to do this for the entire state”. In a few years, he added, such a comprehensive system for the entire public sector will be available with financing from the Recovery Fund.

“This will allow us to simplify procedures, change them, better serve the citizen,” he added.

The third point, Pierrakakis said, was that good services amounted to social policy.

“Digital transformation is social policy. It helps the unemployed person, the working parent, people with disabilities, people that live far from public services geographically, expatriate Greeks and, at the end of the day, it completely changes the equation of what the state is and how it interacts with people,” the minister added.