Greece stands to benefit from a 2-billion-euro increase in EU funding for migration, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at the end of the Special European Council on Thursday.
Mitsotakis also spoke extensively about the agricultural sector and support to farmers at European and national level, and he also said he would be addressing parliament on Friday, responding to questions by New Left leader Alexis Charitsis on restoring Thessaly after the deadly storms last year.
The Greek premier began his comments by expressing his satisfaction over member countries' agreement to revise the EU's multiannual budget and the agreement to financial assistance to Ukraine.
On migration funding, he said the increase of the budget was important because "Greece has a very high participation [rate] in these funds, as we have a lot of infrastructure, for example, that are funded and must continue to be funded by European resources, as we are doing a European job at the borders of our country with Turkiye that demands European funding as well."
In the primary sector as well, Greece managed to get additional funding from the EU's solidarity fund for compensation of damage in Thessaly, "although the great majority of agricultural compensation funds will always come from the state budget," Mitsotakis said. He added that "in the last four years, over 1 billion euros from the [agricultural insurer] ELGA have been disbursed to farmers to manage natural catastrophes and damage from extraordinary weather phenomena."
Farmers
The 1 billion funding "is double the amount that corresponds to the contributions farmers made for insurance against natural catastrophes in terms of ELGA. This means that the state budget, the Greek taxpayer, had the ability - and obviously did the right thing, as the government also did - to support our farmers with significant additional funding," Mitsotakis said. He added however that this "does not mean we should not revise ELGA's regulations to respond with greater accuracy, I would say, to new climate factors. But allow me to discuss these in more detail in parliament tomorrow. In conclusion, though, Greece is greatly benefited and all Greek requests that were tabled in the framework of the [EU budget] revision were accepted in the end."
Farmers in Greece and Europe had similar issues with high production costs and competition regulations, "therefore the issue is not Greece's alone." Mitsotakis welcomed the European Commission's initiative related to fallow lands, as "Greece fought behind the scenes for changes in 2024" related to the fallow-land status, which has been imposed by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) since 2020. "What this means in action is that over 1 million stremmas [100,000 hectares] will be freed for Greek farmers for specific cultivations - which means additional income, but naturally also related subsidies for these stremmas that will be cultivated."
Mitsotakis also welcomed the European Commission's start of a strategic in-depth discussion on structural issues, related to the way CAP is organized, and the significant restrictions it imposes on efforts we are carrying out for green transition."
Responding to a question by the Greek press, he underlined: "Let us clarify that one-third of the European Union's budget is allocated to CAP. If CAP didn't exist, I do not think we would have the agricultural sector we see today in the European Union. We therefore give, spend, a lot of money for the Common Agricultural Policy. But there are problems, related to how European farmers - and by extension, Greek ones - are exposed to global competition, which must be discussed."
Middle East
One of the issues he said needs to be discussed is the restrictions outlined in the free-trade agreement: "We ask of European producers to adapt to strict rules, which of course increases production cost. Shouldn't we however be asking states that import to the EU in the framework of a free-trade agreement to have the same restrictions as well, so that they do not have a natural competitive advantage in terms of their costs? That is one example of those issues that keep resurfacing." The CAP had been essentially agreed since 2020, at a time prior to the coronavirus pandemic and the great geopolitical developments resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he said.
Commenting on other issues, Mitsotakis said that it did not look good for the EU to not be able to reach conclusions on the Middle East developments, but expressed hopes that the next European Council would move forward. "Beyond that, Greece, as a country with credibility in the wider region, will continue to do what it can to contribute to a peaceful resolution of this tragic situation prevailing in the Gaza Strip today, but to also raise insistently the issue of a final political management of this problem, which is the two-state solution, as we explained several times before."