Editorial Ta Nea: Reforms

Kyriakos Mitsotakis had the misfortune just a few months after taking office to be confronted with several crises. Balancing them would have been an exceptionally difficult task for anyone.

What with the need to manage the deadly coronavirus pandemic and at the same time to fend off intense Turkish provocations the PM put his plan for reconstructing Greece on the back burner.

For a long time his top objective was managing daily life as the government enforced a lockdown in the spring and in the summer the Turkish hydrocarbons research vessel Oruc Reis was sailing around the Eastern Mediterranean.

Yet the government also had the fortune to enjoy an extremely broad social consensus in support of its policies that it still maintains.

This is the first government in many years that knows it can count on having economic security due to the EU pandemic recovery fund and that it can within a few years shape a new, better Greece for its citizens.

That is the paramount challenge for those in power today.

They must not allow the pandemic and the Turkish crisis to disorient them and they must speed up reform efforts so as to implement necessary changes.

There is no other choice than to expedite reforms as any delay will cause problems in the future.

The government must remember that it was elected with a mandate to overhaul the public sector, digitalise the state, and help the middle class to recover.

On the way it satisfied more social needs and demands such as bolstering the National Health System (ESY).
If it delays any longer the government will risk leaving reforms half-finished as did previous governments which did not manage to complete their reform projects.