Rural Development and Food Minister Margaritis Schinas speaking at the 16th conference of NWD said that easy illusions and populism can have a great cost for the country.
“The Southwest has been on the right side of history throughout time and our ideas have been vindicated. Today the country is at a different stage. We have a prime minister one of the most reliable leaders of the European family. But we must not forget what we have been through and what we lived in 2010 and 2015. Some want to make us forget, others by rebranding to come back. This time we will not bite, the Greeks have suffered and learned,” he continued.
Schinas stressed that in this new reality, the discussion about the primary sector and the region is back at the centre of the debate.
“We have unlimited potential. Greek agri-food, olive oil, feta, wine, over 120 PDO products, fish farming, fruit, are now the best ambassadors of our country. We have a very big challenge ahead of us. To move from a management logic, from a payment logic to a logic of a total reorganization of the country and the Greek region,” he stressed.
The Minister of Rural Development said that next to these great potentials there are pathologies, difficulties and problems. “The biggest pathogen was the payment system. The government made a difficult but necessary political decision to make a radical consolidation of the OPEKEP by transferring it to ADC. Not to sweep the problem under the carpet but because European resources belong to the real producers, the entitled, the households. The new payment system must be fair, just, transparent and absolutely reliable. The transition is a historic choice, it shows that this government has the will to break pathologies of many decades,” he said.
Schinas noted that more than 1 billion euros will be paid by the end of June and 2.3 billion euros by the end of the year. “The big winners of this reform will be the honest producers. That’s who we are with and who we work for. The experts, the circuits, will find us on the other side. We did the same by ending another system that spawned organic monkey products. For all that, the party is over, we are finally turning the page,” he said.
“I am used to hardship. I know that the countrywould not roll back again. I am confident that we will make it. This struggle is just beginning and it will be victorious,” he said.
