Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. We have Kariako schmits attackers,
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Greece here with us. We've jumped straight
Speaker 1: in a lot of movement on Ukraine this week. You've
Speaker 1: had Trump saying stuff about it. You have various NATO
Speaker 1: allies getting cross about the fighter jets and curtaining in
Speaker 1: their territory and warning Russia about it. You even had
Speaker 1: Germany coming forward and saying, let's use the one hundred
Speaker 1: and forty billion dollar billion euro frozen assets to help Ukraine. Now,
Speaker 1: you have always been a kind of champion of this
Speaker 1: idea of having a common European fund for defense, and
Speaker 1: you've always had pushback from the Germans on that. Do
Speaker 1: you think now it stands the chance of going through?
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for having me, John.
Speaker 3: I've been advocating for quite some time about the need
Speaker 3: to create some joint European borring facility to cover what
Speaker 3: I consider the quintessential European public good, which is common
Speaker 3: Youseuropean defense. And I do sense that there is much
Speaker 3: more momentum now amongst my colleagues. Some of the countries
Speaker 3: that were inherently against the idea of additional further joint
Speaker 3: borrowing have changed their mind, and I'm pretty sure that
Speaker 3: Germany will eventually also agree to this necessity. And we
Speaker 3: need to make sure that this facility finances projects of
Speaker 3: common interest. And I would put missile defense, drone defense
Speaker 3: right up there in terms of our collective European priorities.
Speaker 3: So I would expect some movement soon. We have two
Speaker 3: European councils and hopefully we can make progress towards that direction.
Speaker 1: Just looking at the economy at the moment, the Greek
Speaker 1: economy has been doing very well, is no doubt you
Speaker 1: will tell me. But in twenty twenty four you forecast
Speaker 1: a deficit and then you ended up with a surplus,
Speaker 1: and this year you're again forecasting a deficit. It's quite
Speaker 1: close to the end of the year. I wondered if
Speaker 1: now you're close enough to say this year you end
Speaker 1: up with a surplus again.
Speaker 3: For the more we've been having, we've been producing significant
Speaker 3: primary surpluses, and I think it's quite possible that we
Speaker 3: may have a real surplace again this year. This is
Speaker 3: a foundation of our economic policy. We've suffered a lot
Speaker 3: from not being fiscally disciplined. This is not going to
Speaker 3: happen again. But I think the big success of our
Speaker 3: policy is to ensure that the economy is growing at
Speaker 3: the same time to create jobs. We've created five hundred
Speaker 3: thousand jobs since I became Prime Minister, and the real
Speaker 3: goal is to ensure that this collective wealth is spread equally.
Speaker 3: So my focus now is to use whatever physical space
Speaker 3: I can create through growth and tackling tax evasion to
Speaker 3: cut taxes to the middle class. It's important for me
Speaker 3: that this discussion is not just limited to the economists
Speaker 3: saying good things about the economy. I want the average
Speaker 3: Greek to really feel a tangible benefit from this girl story.
Speaker 3: And starting January first, when these tax cuts will kick in,
Speaker 3: they will see a real increase in their paychecks.
Speaker 2: And this is very, very important to me.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the average Greek in a second,
Speaker 1: you just mentioned fiscal discipline. I mean, you look at
Speaker 1: the core of Europe. I sat down with Premiss Sanchez
Speaker 1: to Spain the other day as well. Something dramatic has changed.
Speaker 1: You know, Greece Spain, You're the country is growing really fast.
Speaker 1: In the middle You've got countries in much greater trouble.
Speaker 1: You look at France, you're growing clapping out over two percent.
Speaker 1: They're struggling to get to half a percent of growth.
Speaker 1: That death is ballooning, is it? We now in a
Speaker 1: situation where you would worry about financial contagion from France.
Speaker 3: This seemed inconceivable a few years ago. What I can
Speaker 3: tell you is that eventually no one can beat the markets.
Speaker 2: We know this.
Speaker 3: Very well, and I do think that at some point
Speaker 3: governments have to take difficult decision to put their fiscal
Speaker 3: house in order. We've done that. Once you do it,
Speaker 3: then you can enter into this virtures cycle where you
Speaker 3: can actually grow the economy, you can cut taxes, you
Speaker 3: can support income through targeted measures. We're there, but we
Speaker 3: also went through very very difficult periods and very painful reforms.
Speaker 3: So I do hope that the political situation in France
Speaker 3: somehow stabilizes. It is important that the core of Europe,
Speaker 3: you know, France, German, that these economies are doing well.
Speaker 3: Look at I mean, we we will receive thirty six
Speaker 3: million tourists this year. Our tourism industry is booming. But
Speaker 3: if our core markets don't do well, we will also
Speaker 3: at some point indirectly be affected.
Speaker 1: You're famously polite man, and I know that Sheldon Freuder
Speaker 1: is not a Greek word as a German one, but
Speaker 1: there must be some element in Greece of looking at
Speaker 1: these people who nearly push Greece out and thinking, well
Speaker 1: things have changed.
Speaker 2: Well, things have changed.
Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, this is not
Speaker 3: about you know, pointing fingers, or about saying that you
Speaker 3: were wrong and we were right. It's about ensuring that
Speaker 3: Europe collectively grows. I'm disappointed by the fact that when
Speaker 3: I look at the drug report, we have not made
Speaker 3: significant progress, and I think it's time that you know,
Speaker 3: you know, in Europe, we were usually were too.
Speaker 2: Of the council.
Speaker 3: We were our European hat and we were our national hat.
Speaker 3: And it seems to me that for some countries the
Speaker 3: European hat seems to be shrinking. So we have to
Speaker 3: look at the big picture. Some of the decisions that
Speaker 3: we need to take require more funding. It's pretty clear,
Speaker 3: and we need to put our European interest, not necessarily
Speaker 3: ahead of our national interest, but to realize that some
Speaker 3: difficult decisions need to be taken at the European level.
Speaker 1: One of the areas where Europe has been pretty useless
Speaker 1: at doing these things is banking, the banking union and
Speaker 1: things like that. At least Unique Credits has built up
Speaker 1: a stake in Alpha Bank, which you were famously much
Speaker 1: more relaxed about than the Germans were they when they
Speaker 1: built up one in Commerce Bank. Would you be prepared
Speaker 1: if they were to take over Alpha Bank?
Speaker 2: Would you be relaxed about that?
Speaker 3: If we really mean what we say about creating skill
Speaker 3: in banking union, we should be open to these types
Speaker 3: of transactions. I see value when an important foreign bank
Speaker 3: wants to acquire a stake in a Greek bank, it
Speaker 3: means they believe in the potential of the Greek economy,
Speaker 3: and it means that the bank could possibly do better.
Speaker 3: I'm pushing my banks to extend more credit to mortgages,
Speaker 3: to small medium sized enterprises. The stronger their balance sheet is,
Speaker 3: the more likely it is that they will do so. Yes,
Speaker 3: in principle, we are in favor of these transactions, and
Speaker 3: I'm happy that Unit Credit has decided to look at
Speaker 3: one of our Greek banks and take a significant stake.
Speaker 1: Isn't that But as you said earlier, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of problem with Europe at the moment. Most people are
Speaker 1: taking these decisions on I suppose purely nationalist or that
Speaker 1: kind of level. You look around Europe at the moment,
Speaker 1: the ability to create common things like a banking union,
Speaker 1: that's the real problem at the moment. Do you think
Speaker 1: that is something coming from Brussels or from the national capital.
Speaker 3: I think most of the important if you want to
Speaker 3: understand what's happening in Brussels, look at the national capitals.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: The Council has become more complicated in terms of taking decisions.
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, past we took a momentum
Speaker 3: decision when we had to address COVID is Ukraine, a
Speaker 3: geopolitical COVID moment. I would argue to a certain extent, yes,
Speaker 3: and I remember the COVID fund negotiations. There are a
Speaker 3: lot of countries, including Germany, they said no until they
Speaker 3: said yes. So when it comes to defense, which as
Speaker 3: I said, is the ultimate European public good, I do
Speaker 3: expect that we will be able to take important decisions
Speaker 3: to target specific European projects, which would then again require
Speaker 3: European collaboration.
Speaker 1: You talked a bit earlier about the average Greek I
Speaker 1: was looking at the numbers. Greek GDP has come soaring back,
Speaker 1: but still roughly the same level in nominal terms as
Speaker 1: it was before the crisis, a bit lower in real terms.
Speaker 1: Is that still Greece has now been through that phase
Speaker 1: and it's now the terms of looking forward to a
Speaker 1: different form of Greece.
Speaker 3: We have clearly turned the page. But as I said,
Speaker 3: if we want to converge with Europe, we need to
Speaker 3: grow faster than Europe. We've been doing this, but this
Speaker 3: growth needs to be qualitatively different. We needs to focus
Speaker 3: on investment, on innovation, on experts, on creating really valuable jobs.
Speaker 3: And my main goal is to ensure that way wages increase,
Speaker 3: that we have wage convergence with Europe, and that we
Speaker 3: support disposable income at a time when all European economies
Speaker 3: are faced with the cost of livid crisis. I mean,
Speaker 3: and the only way to address this is to ensure
Speaker 3: that we support disposable income. But we have to do
Speaker 3: it in a fiscally sustainable way. That's what we have
Speaker 3: done so far. We will continue doing it. I do
Speaker 3: expect that next year we will again perform very well.
Speaker 3: So I tell my fellow Greek citizens that I think
Speaker 3: the best days are ahead of us, and that this
Speaker 3: is a policy that will deliver long term benefits to them.
Speaker 1: You have elections coming up in twenty twenty seven. The
Speaker 1: polls at the moment, so you might have to go
Speaker 1: into coalition with people you've won two terms. I think
Speaker 1: you'll be the first person and to get a third term.
Speaker 1: If you did, would you be prepared to go into coalition?
Speaker 3: Elections are eighteen months ahead. Eighteen months out. We are
Speaker 3: way ahead in the polls. Our goal is to win
Speaker 3: an absolute majority. We've done it twice. There were people
Speaker 3: doubting that we would succeed before the previous elections.
Speaker 2: I think that if we deliver on.
Speaker 3: Our commitments, and if the economy continues growing, if we
Speaker 3: work hard to improve the National Health service, these are
Speaker 3: the priorities I set out in twenty twenty three. We
Speaker 3: have a reasonable chance to win an absolute majority. But
Speaker 3: if the quick people decide otherwise, it's eventually we have
Speaker 3: to respect their decision.
Speaker 1: We will look forward to following you through that. Carre
Speaker 1: chrismis te guess. Thank you very much for talking to Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you John for having me