Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Lesbos today, Friday, April 19, and spoke at the handover event of the Kalloni-Sigirio road axis.
“I also want to emphasize that it is a project that will be built with national funds, as it was a political decision of the Government to transfer the funding of the project to the Public Investment Program and in this way we prove in practice the priority we give to major development projects , which change the face of Lesvos”, said the Prime Minister, among other things.
His statements in detail:
Let me focus on the schedule, which the minister also mentioned. We hope to have the project fully contracted within the next month and construction will begin immediately therefollowing.
And I also want to emphasize that it is a project that will be built with national funds, as it was a political decision of the Government to transfer the financing of the project to the Public Investment Program and in this way we prove in practice the priority we give to major development projects , which change the face of Lesbos.
The Minister also mentioned the other projects. I would like to add, in addition to the important interventions carried out in the island’s school units, the biological cleaning project, which is underway for the area near the airport, but also the important interventions carried out in the Health units, with the most important being the complete renovation of the Psychiatric clinic of your Hospital. A project which we also estimate will begin to be implemented immediately.
So we see how your island, dear Mr. District Governor, Mr. Mayor, acquires a completely new dynamic, a dynamic that I had the opportunity to use this morning as well, despite the difficult weather conditions prevailing in Mytilini. Walking down the street, greeting professional taxi drivers, I saw many smiles and I understand why there are many smiles. Because the opening of the Lesvos connection, three ports here on the island will eventually be covered by the visa facilitation program, has already brought a significant number of Turkish visitors to the island. A request of the Region was granted by the government, but I want to repeat that it was not easy at all. What you see today and we take for granted, it took a lot of work from the Minister of Migration Policy and his staff to convince the European Commission that we are ready to meet the high demands of Schengen, to be able to we grant a visa within minutes.
It is the only case in Europe at the moment that a similar program is running, it is running here in the North Aegean. It was my commitment, we made it happen.
And of course, to the overall picture, I would like to add something that you know very, very well, those of you who have visited the island many times since the days when I was the leader of the opposition, in the first difficult months of the first government term, we remember traumatic experiences in the management of the refugee immigrant.
I think it is accurate to say that Greece is one of the few, if not the only country that has effectively dealt with the problem of refugee flows with tangible results, with a significant reduction in flows, with an excellent job done by the Coast Guard but and in cooperation with the Turkish authorities. Because you see that this improvement in Greece-Turkey relations has tangible results for your daily life. You are the first and the first who want to live and live in conditions of peace and peaceful coexistence with Turkey.
The reduction in immigration flows, illegal immigration, the increase in legal visits, which is the other side of the coin, I would say is the tangible proof that this policy of rapprochement between Greece and Turkey has real results, which give a substantial economic growth dividend for Lesvos but also for all the islands of the Eastern Aegean.
In closing, I would like to congratulate the construction company and also say that we expect the same speed and consistency in the implementation of the large water supply project, which will start shortly. Mr. Exarchou did not tell you that he has spent a large part of his term if I am not mistaken over here on Lesbos, so I imagine he has a special reason to be concerned.
But it is of great importance that we now have construction companies, our large companies and our smaller companies, which are able to carry out complex projects. I would also like to thank the services of the Ministry of Culture. It was very difficult to build a project in the middle of such an important geopark as the petrified forest in Sigri.
However, our companies have the experience to be able to manage such complex projects, just as the Thessaloniki metro is complex. Even if this is complex, which will finally be delivered to the Thessalonians in the month of November.
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