Greece’s prime minister says he will keep spending under wraps in a keynote speech

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece’s prime minister said Saturday he would not allow excessive spending to derail the country’s recovery from the lengthy financial crisis that required an unprecedented infusion of funds from its creditors, in a key speech at the country’s most prestigious trade event.

“I have not come with a bag full of gifts,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis told his audience at the Thessaloniki International Fair.

Heads of government traditionally outline the following year’s economic policies at the fair every September, while touting their achievements.

The European Union’s new post-pandemic fiscal rules seek to keep spending growth under wraps, with violators facing fines, and Mitsotakis promised to stick by those rules,

Mitsotakis did announce pension and minimum wage hikes, as well as measures designed to boost exports, improve productivity, help with housing shortages, encourage the young to stick with farming and address the country’s low birthrate.

Several of those measures, such as a second round of low-rate mortgages for young families, worth 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) will be partly funded by the European Union.

Addressing tourism growth — criticized by some as excessive — Mitsotakis said that short-term rentals should not be “demonized” but promised not to allow any new ones in central Athens for at least the next year.

He also announced higher disembarkation fees for cruise ship passengers, especially, he said, on the tourist magnet islands of Santorini and Mykonos. Regarding Santorini, government officials have let it be known that the current fee of 35 cents ($0.38) per passenger could rise to between 10 and 15 euros ($11 - $16.60).

Mitsotakis denied that his government — in power since 2019 — was suffering from reform fatigue and what he called the “second term curse.”

And while his conservative party saw its share of the vote plunge by about a third in last June’s European elections – a contest with not much at stake and marked by record abstention – it nearly doubled the score of the runner-up, the left-wing Syriza, which also saw its numbers decline.

The Greek leader noted that the government has more than a thousand days until the next national election to implement its program and claimed that his party is the only stabilizing force in Greek politics.

It certainly faces little challenge from the opposition, where the two largest parties, Syriza and the socialist PASOK, are consumed by their internal divisions. Syriza leader Stefanos Kasselakis was facing a motion of no confidence at the party’s central committee meeting later Saturday. The socialists are fighting their own leadership contest in early October with seven sharply differing candidates.

As if to underscore the opposition’s weakness, the traditional, sometimes violent, protest marches – three of them, by unionists, communists and extreme leftists – were the most sparsely attended in years, perhaps ever, with barely 7,500 people taking part, according to local police. They ended without incident.

Thessaloniki, the country’s second-largest city, and the surrounding regions, are strongholds of the extreme, nationalist right, the main beneficiaries of the European elections, with three parties getting more than 16% of the national vote and sending deputies to the European Parliament.

Mitsotakis made sure to tout the projects his government has completed in the area and noted that he appointed the popular, and populist, regional governor of Central Macedonia to be Greece’s next EU commissioner.

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Costas Kantouris contributed from Thessaloniki.