Addressing the Francophone Business Forum Conference, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos underlined on Thursday that he was pleased “because the slogan ‘Greece-France Alliance’, which passed from the defence sector in the 1970s to the culture sector today, is through the recent, very successful initiative of the French Embassy in Athens, extending into the sector of the economy as well. ”

Mr. Venizelos noted that the Greek government can “do a great deal to strengthen French investments in Greece, to support Greek-French cooperation, the export activities of Greek enterprises in France, and the joint actions that can even further promote France’s economic relations with Greece.”

On a political level, the Deputy Prime Minister said that “Greece has a comprehensive plan for exiting the Memorandum and the status of being under troika monitoring, because at the end of this year the European part of the plan is coming to completion.”

He also stressed that the government’s goal is for this plan to constitute a comprehensive agreement with our partners, including the confirmation of the sustainability of the debt, before the election of the President of the Republic.

More specifically, he said that “Greece is proceeding with a plan, security, with strategic stability on five axes,” so that it can take the next steps toward a definitive exit from the crisis.

These five axes, according to Mr. Venizelos, are the following:

1. Gradual release from the Memorandum, a return to European normalcy, the implementation of the national recovery plan without a troika, but within the institutional framework of the European Union and the Eurozone.
2. Political and institutional stability which begins with the protection of institutions, with the election of the President of the Republic, with the necessary consensus.
3. The protection of social cohesion.
4. The consolidation of Greece’s position in Europe and the world.
5. The rallying of the country’s creative forces around the national growth plan, which is an employment plan.