“In July, August, in the high season of tourism, I expect that things will be very reminiscent of a normal summer”, said Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to the German newspaper Bild and journalists Paul Ronzheimer and Liana Spyropoulou, inviting Germans to visit Greece. “Come to Greece. After this pandemic, I am sure that people will want to travel, they will want to relax”, he said.
The Prime Minister, in the interview he gave to Bild, estimated that this year we will have twice as many tourists compared to 2020.
“Last year we welcomed 25% of the tourists who came to our country in 2019. One in four. This year we expect about one in two to come. So we will go from 25% to 50% compared to 2019. I think the trends are encouraging”, he said.
“Greece of 2021 has nothing to do with Greece of 2015 or 2010. It is a different country. We no longer operate in an environment where there are ‘teachers’ overseeing us. We are a sovereign country. We remain in what is called ‘monitoring after the program’, but if we look at the changes we want to make, they are changes we want to make because we decided it is for the good of the country”, points out Kyriakos Mitsotakis answering a question about whether Greece is “the teacher’s favorite student”.
Asked about Angela Merkel, the Prime Minister said: “I have a very good relationship with Chancellor Merkel. We did not agree on everything, we had some heated discussions. I have great respect for her as a European leader. It is a voice of reason. But Germany is a very strong Republic. No democracy depends on a single person. At some point, all political careers come to an end”.
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Regarding the arrest of Protasevic, Kyriakos Mitsotakis talks about “state hijacking” and adds: “I read many, interesting, theories about spies. None of them have been confirmed. We have absolutely no indication that any KGB agent or other agents were on the flight. Absolutely none. Zero indication. And we investigated it in great detail”.
“We should not forget Roman and Sofia”, he said. “We need to find out exactly what happened and we need to keep up the pressure”. “I believe that all of us as European citizens and European leaders have an obligation to work for the release of Roman and his partner, but we must also ensure that other political prisoners in Belarus are released. Because Roman is not alone. There are others”, emphasizes Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
