Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will attend the European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
The European Council meeting is taking place at a critical juncture, as Europe faces multiple challenges, including a new energy crisis, increasing the competitiveness of the European economy, the negotiations on the new Multiannual Financial Framework and the latest developments in Ukraine.
On rising energy prices driven by international uncertainty and disruption in the Strait of Hormuz, the Greek prime minister is expected to stress, according to reports, that the priority must be to bring prices down and explore ways of providing targeted, temporary support to households and businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), ahead of a difficult winter. This must be done while maintaining fiscal stability and sustainability, as markets remain nervous.
Mitsotakis is also expected to reiterate the importance of completing the European Energy Market and strengthening energy interconnections. However, he will argue that more medium-term measures are also needed to address the challenging circumstances. At the same time, Mitsotakis is expected to stress that the green transition is a long-term objective and that Europe must now reassess its approach to energy security and adjust its policy accordingly.
The prime minister is also expected to stress that, amid high inflation, Europe must ask itself whether it can afford the high energy costs facing its industry, the green transition and the need to maintain fiscal stability all at the same time.
On competitiveness and regulatory simplification, Mitsotakis is expected to note that the new energy crisis further highlights the European economy’s competitiveness gap and the need to reduce the EU’s critical dependencies.
As regards negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which are now continuing on the basis of the revised Negobox prepared by the Irish Presidency, Greece has made its position clear. The EU’s increased ambitions cannot be achieved with fewer resources. Greece believes that an ambitious European budget is needed to address new priorities, including in defence, security, research and innovation. These new priorities, however, must not be financed at the expense of Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Greece will not accept further cuts in these areas. However, it is open to discussions on a new package of own resources, having already submitted relevant proposals, provided that the burden is not distributed in a way that disproportionately affects less developed economies.
On enlargement, Greece maintains that it represents a strategic investment in security and stability, with progress in the process dependent on the performance of the candidate countries themselves.
Ιt does not support changing the EU’s decision-making procedures and considers internal EU reforms and enlargement to be two separate processes that should not be treated as a single package. In any case, the European Commission’s proposal needs to be examined carefully.
On migration, Greece was among the first EU member states to highlight the importance of protecting the bloc’s external borders. It has also welcomed the European Commission’s support for its proposal to establish a European mechanism for managing emergency situations involving mass arrivals or the instrumentalisation of migration pressure, as occurred at the Evros border in 2020.
