"The Recovery and Resilience Fund and the new NSRF have an important environmental and green dimension and Greece is using them to be in the vanguard of the green transition", noted the Minister of Economy and Finance, Kostis Hatzidakis, speaking today at the 14th Annual Capital Link Sustainability Forum, entitled "Sustainability: Investment & Development".

Referring to the new NSRF, he stressed that 30% of the funds provide for green actions corresponding to up to 7 billion euros for environmental investments, which the country must promote and utilize, either in public sector actions or in actions related to green entrepreneurship. "There are such programmes amounting to hundreds of millions of euros from which the private sector should benefit," he noted. At the same time, he stressed that 40 per cent of the loans in terms of budget provided through the Recovery Fund must necessarily be for green transition projects. "We have two serious instruments that are being utilized and running satisfactorily. We are among the leading countries in absorption, but that does not mean we should be complacent, especially in the Recovery Fund, where the timelines are tight. And it's a marathon at a pace of 400 metres," he said.

Kostis Hatzidakis recalled that Greece entered the green transition dynamically in 2019. We started to act on many different levels: deginning, electrification, electrification national reforestation plan, integrated waste management, etc. We also promoted the dissemination of renewable energy in many different sectors. He stressed that these actions are taking place within the framework of the NAPP, which provides for specific, measurable and ambitious targets up to 2030. "And based on the ESDP, it is foreseen that we should have green investments approaching the level of a GDP of around €192 billion by 2030. We are talking about large-scale interventions that show both the seriousness of the issue and the challenges for the state as well as for the business and private sectors," he underlined.