Nikos Androulakis, president of Greece's main opposition party PASOK, said his party has a plan to create the conditions for the country's innovation generation to progress, during a visit to the Technopolis Thessaloniki science and technology park ahead of the 90th Thessaloniki International Fair.
Speaking with Tasos Tzikas, president of Technopolis, Androulakis said it is not easy in Greece to turn an innovative idea into a competitive, resilient and outward-looking business. He said there is no easy access to financing, no consulting support, and no state that has organised the environment needed to keep in the country the critical human capital that left for abroad during the years of the financial crisis.
Guidance, Networking and Financing
Androulakis said the critical combination of guidance, networking and financing is what is needed for innovation to flourish in every corner of the country.
Technopolis Thessaloniki is a business park dedicated to high technology firms, based in Greece's second-largest city. The Thessaloniki International Fair, known in Greece as the DETH, is the country's largest trade exhibition and is traditionally the venue where the prime minister sets out the government's economic policy for the year ahead. Its 90th edition is being held this year.
Criticism Over Prime Minister's Fair Address
Referring to the prime minister's planned presence at the 90th fair, Androulakis said the event should not be a forum for bidding up policy measures with an eye only on focus groups and opinion polls. He said it is instead an opportunity to set out a vision for where Greece is headed, asking whether the country wants sustainable tourism and a primary sector with added value, or tourism reduced to bracelets and an agricultural sector that exports raw goods only for them to return processed, at the cost of major economic benefits for the whole of the Greek regions.
He said Greece should not be compared with the Greece of the bailout memorandum years, calling that comparison an evasion that only allows the government to claim things are improving because conditions are better than the collapse of the previous decade. Androulakis said Greece should instead be measured against Portugal, Spain and the Balkan countries today. He warned that if the same policy approach continues, the stagnation Greece faces now will turn into permanent decline once funding from the European Union's Recovery Fund ends.
Regional Development and Western Macedonia
Androulakis also focused on regional development, asking how young people could be kept in Western Macedonia, where the region's economic output is collapsing due to the phase-out of lignite mining, without development initiatives of the kind he described. Lignite, a form of coal, has long powered much of Greece's electricity generation, and Western Macedonia has been the centre of that industry as the country moves to phase it out.
He said the state must work with civil society to design a resilient and sustainable future rather than dwelling in misery and neglect, building on existing strengths under better terms.
Androulakis was accompanied on the visit by Anna Diamantopoulou, head of PASOK's Development policy circle, Stefanos Komninos, secretary of the party's Development Sector, and members of parliament Rania Thraskia, Petros Pappas and Michalis Chourdakis. Christos Papastergiou, head of the main opposition in the Regional Council of Central Macedonia, also took part, according to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency.
