ATHENS – A memorandum of understanding for the founding of an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) centre in Crete was signed on Tuesday, at 12:00, at the Maximos Mansion, during the meeting of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis with the Secretary General of the OECD, Mathias Cormann.

The founding of the centre, which is an initiative of the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, aims to highlight and analyse demographic and migration policies, issues related to the Diaspora, as well as addressing the individual challenges related to the labour market and the population.

The new thematic centre of the OECD in Crete for Population will be actively supported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Municipality of Chania and the Economic Forum of Delphi. Their cooperation was sealed with a memorandum of understanding signed on Monday evening, in a central hotel in Athens, by the Secretary General of the OECD, Mathias Cormann, the Mayor of Chania, Panagiotis Simandirakis, and the President of the Delphi Economic Forum, Symeon Tsomokos. In fact, within the framework of the memorandum, the OECD, the Economic Forum of Delphi and the Municipality of Chania announced the establishment of the International Crete Conference for Dialogue on Population, which will be held annually at the centre’s facilities in Crete, as well as a series of accompanying events for the individual issues concerning its priorities.

PM Mitsotakis stresses importance of MoU with OECD

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Tuesday stressed the importance of signing a memorandum of understanding with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the founding of an OECD centre on the island of Crete.

The prime minister noted that a better place than Greece could not have been chosen for studying populations as Greece received about one million people in 1922, while today it is one of the EU member states dealing with the migration issue, which, in addition to being a field of despicable human trafficking, often becomes a tool of political and state expediency.

He also underlined that Greece defends the external borders of Europe.

The prime minister referred to the OECD survey on Greece, saying that despite the fact that 2022 was a difficult year due to the energy crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the conclusion of the report is noteworthy as it says that “during these troubled times, the Greek economy exceeded the expectations and the forecasts made by the organisation and proved to be the positive surprise of Europe on many fronts.”

On his part, OECD Secretary General Mathias Cormann underlined that the Greek economy is on the right track and must remain so, referring to the findings of the OECD Economic Survey on Greece. The secretary general of the organization concluded that the structural reforms of recent years have brought results, giving particular emphasis to the robust growth, as he characterised it, as well as a significant drop in unemployment.