Minister’s Liakos Speech at the OECD Paris

Mr. General Secretary,

Honorable Ambassadors,

Distinguished Delegates

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I shall begin by thanking OECD for organizing this

honorable gathering.

It is a great opportunity for me to be among all these

distinguished people of the economics and politics
profession

and discuss with you, representing the Greek

government,

the new era and the development prospects that lie

ahead for Greece,

with a special emphasis on changes and reforms,

focusing on domestic challenges
but also

in the wider European and global context of new rising

uncertainties.

Last August Greece completed the third and most

importantly,

the final program of financial support.

We left behind a prolonged period of recession and low

expectations, that cost a quarter of our GDP

and resulted in a surge of unemployment to

unimaginable levels.

We have now regained our autonomy, the right to set

our policy goals and priorities,

and the confidence to pursue a future of prosperity,

creativity and growth.

The six months that followed since then,

sufficiently prove that this is not wishful thinking but a

palpable fact.
We can now move forward and fulfill our vision of “fair
and inclusive Growth” for Greece,

having secured that the underlying conditions are again

quite favorable.

And let me very briefly support this by referring to some

macroeconomic positive trends in this respect:

The growth rate exceeds 2% and all the projections

suggest that its trajectory will remain upward.

We achieved a sustainable fiscal rebalancing through

over-performing budget surpluses for four years now in
a row.

Furthermore, the debt relief measures, as agreed last

June, secured the Greek debt sustainability for many
years ahead in the foreseeable future.

The unemployment rate is steadily falling, although still

remains very high

and it is now at 18,5%, almost seven percentage points

down since we took office.

Export growth reached an all time high in 2018.

At the same time we managed to expand a social safety
net to all our fellow citizens that have been struck the
most from the longstanding recession.

All these measures are being now gradually

reformulated in a coherent and well supported social
pillar.

The focus has shifted from merely tackling the

humanitarian crisis to a broader set of social targets

including active employment and training policies, public

health support and housing policies.

This is the strong supporting basis we want to safeguard

and build upon.

But none of all the above would have been materialized

without the copious and systematic reform effort
throughout the last three and a half years.

We have made substantial progress in modernizing our

tax system,

enhancing the effectiveness of the judicial system,

creating a more business and investment friendly
environment and improving our public administration.

And let me expand a little bit further this point and

outline the basic aspects of some exemplary actions in
this respect, that have also special interest from a policy
maker’s view.

We have introduced one stop shops for starting a new

business and the whole procedure is now a matter of
minutes.

We have enacted laws that facilitate strategic

investments,

allow for second chance to business failure and prompt

to out of court faster settlements.

Our legislation framework for non performing loans is

regarded as best practice and other countries wish to
incorporate it.

Moreover, we have brought the public services to the

21st century by digitalizing certain services and
procedures, interconnecting information technology
systems and making the most of data analysis.

The state of the art introduction of a new budget

classification structure and chart accounts to the
General Accounting Office of the State gave consistency
to the public revenue system and was highly acclaimed.

We enhanced the transparency and the autonomy of the

tax services

providing at the same time motives for wide use of

electronic transactions and the results are outstanding,
in terms of public revenue performance.

There is now in progress the establishment of a clear

framework of land use and Cadastre map that will in
turn facilitate and expand potential business utilization.

We introduced a radical new pension system and

secured its long term viability.

With a special reference to energy cost reduction, a

series of actions have been taken in order to open
electricity and natural gas markets
and enhance completion in favor of households and
enterprises.

A series of privatizations either has taken place or

remain ongoing on energy sector,

hence allowing new players to enter Greek energy

market.

Greece also has top quality research institutions and first

class universities, with two of them making it to the top
100 globally.

We promote the integration of primary research to

applied market use

and at the same time we employ vocational training

programs to make sure that our productive force keeps
up with the fast diffusion of technological changes and
the resulting disruptions in the productive process.

We embrace technical support and the use of the best

practices worldwide where it is best suited.

We also avoid unnecessary and irresponsible

improvisations
and especially we cut the bridges with the vested
interests of the past that were used to favorable
provisions.

It is true that reforms are slow in rendering results and

sometimes discomforting for the societies.

Reforms also need constant monitoring and timely

amendments and corrections.

We are considering for this reason the creation of a

formal public observatory assigned to assess the
progress of reform implementation and make
suggestions accordingly.

We have made some important steps as I described

above knowing at the same time there are a lot more to
be done,

but we have to admit it that Greece is finally on the right

path.
All the above ladies and gentlemen,

I believe depict our determination to change and pursue

our main strategic goal which is the transition of our
productive model into an export–oriented and
investment attractive one, which focuses on
innovation and high value-added production.

To this end, and for the first time in our economic

history,

we composed a thorough growth strategy plan that sets

the priorities and coordinates the steps that need to be
taken in a systematic way.

It is supported with coherent instrumental actions to

provide adequate liquidity through the New
Development Law and the European structural funds.

Greece ranks now among the first in fund absorption

from the Junker Plan and the ESPA and

channels these funds to productive projects through

financing programs, such as the Equifund, TANEO and
the Greek Development Bank that is going to join this
process very soon.

Deal ladies and Gentlemen,

We have turned the page, as it commonly said,

but the biggest challenge now is to stay on this virtuous

route and not compromise all the work we have done.

We must ensure that we left behind the erroneous

practices of the past.

Practices that led to this severe crisis and stay focus on

the fundamental work that awaits us.

This means constant reform awareness and a friendly

and supporting social environment to its side.

The latter one though was highly challenged the

previous years.

The magnitude and the rapidness of the crisis allowed

for the technocratic imposition of austerity measures
under the euphemistic name of reforms
and this distorted the meaning of the concept in the
public’s understanding.

We have to change that and reinvent the notion of

reforms by connecting its relevance with the true
needs of the society.

By broadening the scope of reforms we can include and

discuss the urgent issues of our time

such as the income, educational and opportunity

disparities and inequality, social rights, the climate
change, the rise of migration, the energy efficiency issue
and so on.

We embraced this broader meaning of reforms, along

with the heavy load of the economic ones, in the
sensitive case of minority protection.

The cornerstone of a western type liberal democracy –

product of the Enlightenment- is the recognition and the
respect of the minority’s rights.

What may sound self evident to you, was a subject of a

heated debate in our country and it was our government
that took the initiative to deal with open issues related
to the recognition and provision of equal rights and
status to the LGBT fellow citizens.

I should stress here that OECD is also a strong advocate

of this mentality that takes into account the pluralistic
meaning of reforms

and we have seen it clearly when it comes to social

cohesion actions and especially to educational, labor
and health policies, as well as in poverty alleviation
proposals.

And this is a characteristic that separates OECD

qualitatively from other technocratic supporting
bodies.

It is my firm belief that we have to engage people in the

reform effort

and encourage them to have a saying and participate

actively to the shaping of their future.
In essence, reform success goes hand in hand with
democracy and their respective and combined
strengthening.

This is our holistic approach to reforms and this way we

aspire to see our country move forward in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I tried to argue that Greece is finally back on track and

this time on a healthy basis.

We have entered at last our “Age of Reason”.

We can now take advantage of our geostrategic position

along with the comparative advantages we have in top
quality human capital, Shipping, Tourism, Energy,
Logistics and Agrifood business.

This presupposes a multidimensional and responsible

foreign affairs policy.

We respect and deepen the partnerships with our

traditional alliances and at the same time we expand our
cooperation with other economic powers of the world.
Exemplary in this respect

is the agreement with our neighbors on the longstanding

dispute about their name, which showed to the world
that Greece acts as a power that promotes consensus
and stability,

always seeking for new ways of cooperation and mutual

growth.

And this is our stance with all our neighbors in the area.

Greece proves once again her historical responsibility

and serves as a constituent part of the solution and not

as a part of the problem.

With the same sense of responsibility we stood up to

the dramatic circumstances of the migration crisis in
2015 at the forefront of Europe,

safeguarding the European values,

while, unfortunately, other countries chose to stand in

the back and close their borders.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

All these are now of extreme relevance in the turbulent

context of globalization 4.0, as it is already described in
the public sphere,

and its discontents, meaning the rise of global economic

uncertainty due to the national antagonisms,
technological shifts, and the trade frictions among the
economic powers of the world.

We have witnessed similar situations of extreme

competition in the past that did not result to
catastrophic escalations.

I hope this is going to be true this time as well.

But this conveys at the same time an urgent message for

Europe.

It compels us to strengthen and make more solid steps

towards to coordination

and even consider the unification of main policy areas,

from social and economic aspects to defense and
security.
The stakes now are not solely to be competitive or
protect the common market,

but above all, to remain relevant and coherent in this

global setting.

Many voices already describe a bleak future for the

global economy and make predictions for an
approaching new economic crisis.

Instead, we realize with a sense of disappointment and

dread that the European agenda on the future of
Europe is dominated by extreme anti democratic, anti
European and against reason voices, that wish to make
our continent a closed, small and backward-looking
group of countries.

The upcoming euro elections find Europe at a crucial

historical juncture.

The very concept of the European ideal is under threat.

We have to consider carefully the society’s message to

the governing European establishment and respond with
a sense of urgency.
I’ m optimist though that in the end, the conventional
political forces,

either the conservative or the progressive ones,

will prevail and hopefully change course for Europe.

We are strongly in favor of a new progressive pan

European coalition that will focus on growth, investment
and employment and present the specific means to
attain these goals.

I am confident that a new social contract for the people

of Europe, based on the democratic deepening of
European governance, active social cohesion measures
and a forward-looking Eurozone reform, will
reinvigorate the European project and win the public’s
support.

To conclude Dear All,

I want once again to appraise the efforts of OECD to

objectify and provide social and economic rationale for
reform policies through concrete and specific actions.
Greece has benefited greatly by its cooperation with
OECD and this is best manifested in the 450 and more,
action measures we have implemented all these years
we have been battling the crisis in our country.

It comes not as surprise therefore that Greece was

ranked by OECD 1st in reform application in recent years

and this recognition helped us greatly to restore the

international confidence to our new beginning.

This also plausibly paves the way for still more close
cooperation between the Greek State and OECD.

We are determined to succeed and secure a better

future for the coming generations of our country.

And I’ m sure every country is after the same quest.

In our times though, we must realize the close

interconnection of our fates and work together in peace
and mutual understanding.

There is a Greek word that summarizes this aptly: in

Harmony.
And there is an intergovernmental body assigned exactly
with this mission to our support: the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development.

I’ m looking forward to discuss with you further all these

issues and receive your points of view.

Once again thank you very much.