Mitsotakis sets out vision for ND at congress
Addressing the launch of conservative New Democracy’s 13th national congress in Athens on Friday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said his administration aimed to bring about “a new country” and “new horizons.”
In a speech before the congress, which is to run through Sunday and will feature 13 guest speakers and 1,766 attendees, Mitsotakis said the party’s “ideological and political front remains active and open” and paid homage to the late statesmen Constantinos Karamanlis and Eleftherios Venizelos.
Major political change can only come about if the party “has its tradition as an anchor, progress as its compass and renewal and bold thinking as its fuel,” Mitsotakis told the congress whose slogan is “The Future Starts Now.”
Referring to his administration as “the strongest government in Europe,” Mitsotakis said ND had beaten populism “not by copying its methods but by tackling its essence.”
The premier also underlined his government’s priorities, chiefly boosting growth, and described Greece as a country that is regaining its credibility, “not only a credible interlocutor, valuable partner and necessary ally, but also an equal partner.”
On the key challenge of migration, the premier remarked that the country’s policy had changed, and is now stricter, but appealed to local and regional authority leaders to rise to the occasion and “share the burden that the country is forced to bear.”
