The Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance spoke about the absorption of funds from the Recovery Fund at a panel of the Greece Talks conference, organized by Travel.gr in Thessaloniki.

After first making a brief comment on the upcoming reshuffle (“no one knows where it will be, it remains a matter that no one knows”), he then said: “Greece is in the top positions in the Recovery Fund, we have a positive result in the disbursement, we are expecting 3.1 billion euros and we will have reached 60%. We are in a critical phase because there is a review, and in 2025, we will move to requests for a sixth tranche of 3.9 billion euros and a seventh tranche of 3.5 billion euros.”

“The Recovery Fund touches all aspects of everyday life. We are upgrading 80 hospitals, we see it in schools, in buses, we see new fleets. We have exceptional quality in tourism and in service delivery. Tourism is gigantic in cities that are growing and providing better services. We are doing urban upgrades with the Recovery Fund, and we are seeing road safety issues,” Papathanasis added.

The deputy minister of National Economy then commented on the support for Greek tourism from the Recovery Fund, saying the government was forced to redirect resources due to the climate crisis.

“The climate crisis has brought great disruption, and the development and frequency of phenomena is unpredictable. With Daniel, we have redirected resources from the Recovery Fund and the NSF, and we have doubled the amount for natural disasters from 300 million to 600 million. Tourism has given and is giving quite a lot. We are living in a very strange period with headwinds from Europe; the war in Ukraine is not stopping and causing instability. Greece has a stable government, a general political stability which is supportive for the development of tourism. In a country without stability, tourism would not flourish. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spearheaded the creation of the Recovery Fund, and I will close with the country’s defence shield. Greece, because of its position, had to spend more than 2% of GDP, this entered the general discussion of the EU and will give us more stability,” Papathanasis noted.