PM Mitsotakis: ‘The year 2022 was one full of challenges but also steps of progress’

Athens.- A review of the major policies introduced in 2022, especially those aiming to improve the lives of young people and women, was posted by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in social media on Sunday, in place of the normal review of the government’s work in the past week.
“Usually on Sundays we have a (not very brief, I know) review of the week that has passed. Today, however, as we leave the period of the holidays behind, I would like to share with you the things that I selectively consider stand out among those that happened in 2022,” the prime minister said.
Mitsotakis started his message by referring to the measures taken to reduce high unemployment among the young, as well as the double increase of the basic wage and measures such as the digital employment card, which aims to combat the phenomenon of undeclared and unpaid overtime.
Other measures he cited included changes for supplementary pensions after 2022 and the transformation of OAED to a modern Public Employment Service whose focus was not to manage benefits but help those out of work gain the skills that will help them rejoin the job market, while he also highlighted the vocational training programmes launched via the programme “Greece 2.0”, with a budget of one billion euros, to offer digital and green economy skills to 500,000 citizens.
He went on to talk about the “Spiti Mou” programme that was passed into law in 2023, to help up to 140,000 people up to the age to 39 to find affordable housing, while noting that this will be one of the priorities of 2023.
Mitsotakis also referred to the reforms in education, especially in providing vocational training to school leavers and extended hours in primary schools, as well as an increase in places for preschool children to help support working parents.
He noted that many measures sought to make life easier for working mothers, such as an extension of maternity leave to nine months, while he referred to policies targeting domestic violence, sexual abuse of children and others to encourage victims to speak up and report their abusers, saying that this had led to an increase in reports of such crimes.
Mitsotakis additionally highlighted the great progress in clearing a backlog of pending pension applications, with the waiting period for new applications now down to two months, and initiatives such as the ‘Fofi Gennimata’ breast cancer screening programme. He noted the pay rises given to doctors, ambulance staff and ICU staff and the approval for the hiring of new medical staff in the national health system, progress regarding people with disabilities and concluded with action taken to make Greece an attractive destination for film and television productions.
“The year 2022 was one full of challenges but also steps of progress for our country. We all know how many things we would like to improve in the functioning of the state. Each of you will have complaints, ideas, problems that the state should solve. For this reason, when all is said and done, it is not the things that we have already achieved that is in my thoughts but the many things that are yet to do. This is what we work for every day,” the prime minister concluded.