New Democracy will move in the constellation of books for the next 48 hours, with Kyriakos Mitsotakis attending two consecutive book presentations. The first today, Wednesday, at 6:30 PM, at the Athens Conservatory (opposite the historic New Democracy offices on Rigillis Street), where a collective scientific volume edited by MP and former minister Evripidis Stylianidis will be presented, themed “Artificial Intelligence: Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law” by Legal Library Publications. Present will also be Kostas Karamanlis, a longtime personal friend of Mr. Stylianidis, as well as Antonis Samaras, with the brief meeting of the three current and former New Democracy presidents and prime ministers drawing interest.
Recently, tones have softened both from the Maximos Mansion and from Piraeus Street toward Mr. Samaras, while daily the number of government and party officials who either adopt a milder line or call for the former prime minister’s reintegration into the party continues to grow.
The composition of the speaker panel at Mr. Stylianidis’ book presentation is also interesting, consisting of Theodoros Poulias, executive from AI UNISYSTEMS, emeritus law professor and former New Democracy MP Theodoros Fortsakis, and Metropolitan of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki Nikolaos.
Tomorrow, Thursday, also with Mr. Mitsotakis’ presence, the presentation of the book “The Great Return: The road to Greece’s credibility” will take place, authored by Alexis Patelis, director of the prime minister’s economic office from 2019 to 2024. The event will be held at the “Onassis Foundation” Amphitheater of the National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum with speakers Yannis Stournaras, Marialena Athanasopoulou and Rea Vitali. The discussion will be coordinated by author and journalist Makis Provatas, while Mr. Patelis himself will also speak.
“This book describes the great return: how we went from capital controls –which still existed in 2019– to the moment when our country was internationally recognized for its economic recovery and stability. How we came to be proud of Greece abroad again,” Mr. Patelis notes in the introduction of his book, which in the current political context serves a dual narrative for the government: reminding of the economy’s trajectory during the SYRIZA and Alexis Tsipras governance years and presenting the successful economic course of the last six years.
Mitsotakis’ message about Tsipras
Furthermore, yesterday, Tuesday afternoon, Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke at the General Assembly of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises and emphasized that Greece, the pariah of 2015, today borrows from international markets cheaper than even other powerful European economies, while clarifying that this is a result of the credibility the government managed to restore for the country and a positive consequence of internal stability from a policy that can gradually transform collective growth into prosperity for the many.
The issue of political stability was at the center of the prime minister’s speech, amid rapid political developments in France. “There is no economic prospect without political stability. No investments without a secure environment. Nor, of course, development without rules that will be observed under conditions of normalcy and social cohesion,” he stated, also mentioning the governmental crises erupting in Europe, such as in France.
Prompted by Alexis Tsipras’ reappearance and the situation prevailing in the political scene and opposition parties, Mr. Mitsotakis repeated that stability constitutes the basis for any further prospect and reminded of the adventures from lies of simplistic solutions, benefits without basis and delusions in an economy that was in intensive care, as he mentioned. “We have a national duty never to experience this again,” he noted in his speech and stood again on political stability.
“Only strong governments guarantee that changes to keep an economy on a prosperity trajectory will be implemented, without submission to populism and away from any political experimentation,” he stated, while emphasizing that “what Greeks have achieved so far did not come easily and tomorrow may not be taken for granted at all,” essentially building from now the core of New Democracy’s political narrative for 2027.
