Athens, 23 March 2022

Greek participation in the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on European Policies

The work of the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on European Policies on behalf of citizens: CAP, Green Deal and regional funds has been completed. The Conference took place in Tours (France) and the Hellenic Parliament was represented by Harris Theocharis and Katerina Notopoulou, members of the Standing Committee on Production and Trade. 

In his intervention, Mr Theocharis mentioned that the energy transition is a fundamental aspect of European policy to combat climate change, stressing that Greece remains committed to its "Fit for 55" goals, and beyond, and called on the European Council to approve the proposals of the French Presidency for a new European fund that will support, inter alia, the EU's strategic autonomy in the field of energy. The Greek MP noted that Greece, in the framework of energy security and reducing dependence on Russian imports, has expressed the will to reboot the development of natural gas and oil resources in its territory and to increase electricity production through renewable resources. Mrs Notopoulou for her part noted that the development model used until today resulted in a waste of global resources and added that financial mechanisms should be made available and accesible to all SMEs throughout the EU. She further underlined that the evolving European energy crisis has proven that our commitment to natural gas is wrong and since we are lagging behind in achieving our climate neutrality goals, regional funding resources should go towards green energy and not fossil fuels or nuclear energy. 

In the session on sustainable tourism, Mr Theocharis said that since we are in the midst of three crises, the pandemic that we have yet to overcome, the global price crisis and the war in Ukraine, we need to take into account that sustainability is not just about the environment or cultural diversity, but that it has economic and social dimensions. The tourism crisis due to the pandemic, he added, showed us that without international cooperation we cannot recover and called on the countries to immediately discussed common rules for the day after in case travel restrictions need to be reinstated, as this will need to be done in a coordinated and gradual way. Mr Notopoulou said in her intervention that the European crisis management mechanism in tourism is an imperative for building the sector's resilience and sustainability during the green transition. She also pointed out that the European Union must provide sufficient economic support and financial tools to SMEs, considering they are the backbone of European tourism. 

 

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