Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis left a meeting of European Union leaders with 72 billion euros ($82.38 billion) in COVID-19 relief funding from a bloc-wide package of 748.99 billion euros ($857 billion) in loans and grants for the stricken countries.
Mitsotakis said his conservative New Democracy government would manage the package “with responsibility and prudence.” The overall objective, he said, would be Greece’s “productive reconstruction.”
“We finally managed to launch a very ambitious reaction, a reaction that addresses the symmetrical shock caused by the pandemic,” he said after reports the four days of wrangling were contentious and argumentative and that Hungary and Poland should be specially monitored on their authoritarian governments spending.
“Today we have managed a very ambitious response, which corresponds to the symmetrical shock which the pandemic has triggered in all economies,” Mitsotakis said, the news agency Reuters reported.
He said the funds would be disbursed carefully in Greece and with meticulous planning. “We have no intention of spreading the money around with the carefree attitude of the nouveau-riche,” Mitsotakis said.
“We have no intention of wasting this significant European capital now at our disposal. We will invest it to the benefit of all Greeks,” he added.
His government had handed out 17.5 billion euros ($20.02 billion) in subsidies to workers temporarily laid off and businesses shut during a 10-week lockdown that was gradually lifted week by week after being imposed to prevent the spread of the virus.
The EU funding comes out of an unprecedented 1.8 trillion-euro ($2.1 trillion) budget after the 27 member states leaders committed to a costly, massive aid package for those hit hardest by COVID-19, which has already killed 135,000 people in the region.
Read the full report at thenationalherald.com
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