Development minister meets EU’s Regional Policy Commissioner

Visiting European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn, currently on a visit to Athens, on Friday praised the decisions taken by the Greek government as correct and the only solution for Greece’s problems.

“The Greek economy is in difficult straits. The right measures have been taken. There are no alternative solutions. I support and urge the government to continue,” he said after a meeting with Greece’s Regional Development and Competitiveness Minister Mihalis Chrysohoidis.

Hahn noted in a joint press conference with Chrysohoidis that the money given to Greece via the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) could help improve the economy but had to be used in the best possible way.

He declared himself satisfied with absorption rates for NSRF funds (now at 17 percent) and said that the average rate of absorption in other countries was around 20 percent.

The Commissioner urged the Greek government to accelerate rates of absorption by intensifying its efforts and stressed that Greece “had to grab the opportunity by the hair”.

“There is money available that we don’t want to be lost. We have intervened so as to help this money be properly invested,” he said.

The minister said that the NSRF was a “battering ram” for defeating the crisis and that absorption of NSRF funds would be 18 percent by the end of the year. The target was to double rates of absorption in 2011, he added.

Concerning EU cohesion policy in general and the distribution of funds in the new programme period from 2014 until 2020, Chrysohoidis said that this would have to also examine the marked inequalities that were rapidly emerging within the EU due to the crisis.