Kyriakos Mitsotakis departs today at noon for Davos, Switzerland, where the geopolitical temperature has already been running high since Tuesday, to participate in the World Economic Forum. Initially scheduled to remain until Friday with a series of meetings and contacts, his program will be cut short as he must travel to Brussels on Thursday afternoon for the extraordinary informal European Union Summit convened by Antonio Costa.
Mitsotakis: What he will say at Davos amid geopolitical upheavals
As his associates characteristically emphasize, at a time marked by conflicts, uncertainty, and new geopolitical realities taking shape in the broader region and beyond, Greece – as the Prime Minister is expected to stress during his contacts and public interventions at the Forum – remains a credible force, a pillar of stability, and a reliable partner in Europe and the broader region. It also serves, as he is expected to highlight, as an example in Europe not only for the recovery of the Greek economy and the reforms that brought it, ten years after the economic crisis, to the leadership of the Eurogroup with Kyriakos Pierrakakis, but also for its political stability.
Mr. Mitsotakis is expected to have meetings with top business leaders and, among others, with senior executives of major companies active in technology and Artificial Intelligence who are expressing interest in investment opportunities available in Greece.
On Thursday morning at 11:30, Mr. Mitsotakis will speak at the main panel concerning the big picture in Europe and the challenges it faces, particularly on competitiveness issues. “Europe is stagnant. How can it shake things up?” is the title of the panel, which will also include Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, European Investment Bank President Nadia Calviño, and the CEOs of Deutsche Bank, Christian Sewing, and ExxonMobil, Darren Woods. The Prime Minister, according to his associates, will also have meetings with opinion makers, while he is scheduled to give interviews to major international media outlets.
“Unprecedented challenges for the international geopolitical and economic framework”
At his Tuesday meeting with the President of the Republic, Konstantinos Tasoulas, Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke of “unprecedented challenges for the international geopolitical and economic framework, as it was essentially built after World War II,” and set as the primary objective “that logic, dialogue, and open communication channels should prevail, so that we avoid the worst, especially regarding the relations between Europe, the European Union, and the United States.”
Clarifying, before his departure for Davos and Brussels, the “compass” by which Greece operates, he emphasized that “it is a country that has strategic relations with the United States,” but also that at the same time “it is a member country of the European Union, a country that participates as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, and a country that has fought to defend multilateralism, International Law as the only point of reference for resolving international disputes, and we will not deviate from this position.”
Regarding Donald Trump’s Peace Council for the Gaza Strip, in which Greece has been invited to participate, the Maximos Mansion maintains skepticism, as do several European capitals. “It is a legally complex issue that we are examining, in coordination with our European partners,” government sources note. “The general framework of the peace process based on President Trump’s 20-point plan is provided for in Security Council Resolution 2803, which Greece voted for. Greece, as an elected member of the UN Security Council, always operates within the United Nations framework,” the same sources add.
