In his New Year’s message, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis referred to the challenges of the coming year, and also issued a new call to farmers for dialogue, without blockades against society, he says. In fact, the prime minister ranks the problems of the primary sector among the pathologies that must be defeated, while ranking consultation as the top issue of the dawning year, at a time when the process of an ambitious Constitutional Review will be launched. “For it to be completed, a broader consensus will be needed,” he says, adding that “the maturity, consistency and adequacy of each political force will therefore be tested in practice.” Mitsotakis makes extensive reference to the Defence sector, which “acquires critical importance in our turbulent times, all the more so when 2025 delivers a world in instability and in search of new balances, with unprecedented geopolitical changes and great economic uncertainties, while 2026 rises in turn full of multiple challenges.”

The Prime Minister’s full message is as follows:

New Year’s Eve is a day of celebration and reflection. It is an opportunity to spend happy moments with those we love, to exchange wishes for a better tomorrow, and, at the same time, to positively transform the experiences of the year that is passing. This is what millions of Greeks will do in a short while.

At the turn of the year, however, let us also think of those who will find them in their jobs: from the doctors and nurses in our hospitals and our travelling sailors, to the restaurant workers, and from the police officers who do the breathalyser tests, to the members of the Armed Forces at our borders. For some are lying awake so that we can all sleep soundly.

The latter becomes crucial in our turbulent times, all the more so when 2025 delivers a world in instability and in search of new balances, with unprecedented geopolitical changes and major economic uncertainties, while 2026, in turn, dawns full of multiple challenges.

Behind every difficulty, however, there may be an opportunity. In recent years, after all, we have faced more than a few crises. To prove that, in a rapidly changing environment, adaptability is now a national necessity.

In such a complex context, our country is trying to face the new economic, social, and environmental realities by strengthening its position. Not, obviously, without delays or mistakes, but with results that have undoubtedly made it stronger. With its defences shielded, its economy growing and its society more dynamic, constantly improving its daily life.

Among the milestones of 2025 is certainly the tax reform that supports the income of the middle class and young people. Also, the renovation of hospitals and health centers, the modernization of education, as well as the geopolitical upgrading of our country, both as an energy hub and as a state that exploits its underwater resources, with partnerships of great national, economic and geostrategic importance.

All this, while “Kimon”, the first of the four Greek frigates Belh@rra, is about to sail to Salamis, with the country’s Finance Minister presiding over the Eurogroup and everyone’s net salaries increasing every year, as a “buffer” to the cost of living.

This, however, is only one side of things. For it is true that we still have many pathologies to overcome. For example, putting the primary sector on the right footing at last, with logic and dialogue, but also with bold cuts that no longer hide the problem “under the carpet”. And, of course, without blockades against society, when the state has already responded to most of the farmers’ demands.

The agreement, therefore, on the major changes that the country still needs, is becoming a top issue of the year ahead, in a period in which the process of an ambitious Constitutional Review will be launched. For it to be successfully completed, broader consensus will be needed. The maturity, consistency, but also the adequacy of each political force will therefore be tested in practice.

I am sure that this is also the demand of many, those who think first and then speak instead of just shouting, those who want to judge and compare. That is why the government will move into the new year with the same project, insisting on the trajectory of certainty and work, refusing demagogy, toxicity, and dangerous experimentation, whatever the façade, and choosing a path of responsibility and work.

It is therefore worth welcoming the dawn of the new year with confidence and optimism. After all, Greece and all of us are now both more experienced and stronger than ever before. Armed with the great conquests of our people, as well as with the lessons that 2025 has brought. That is why we are starting with the result as our compass, so that with perseverance and effort we can move even further ahead, having 2026 as our first stop, but also having 2030 as our horizon of hope – it is a landmark year, as it will mark 200 years since the official foundation of the new Greek state -, eliminating once and for all the pathologies that still plague it.

Happy birthday, then, to the Greeks. Health and happiness in every household and more prosperity in every corner of our homeland. Happy New Year!