Greece is moving towards achieving a goal of green transition with a detailed and ambitious plan. Greek Finance Minister Christos Staikouras on Monday presented the three action pylons for the timely and efficient green transition of the economy, of the financial system and enterprises.
Addressing the 2023 Social Dialogue Summit with the participation of the Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions of the Southeastern Europe, organized by the Economic and Social Council of Greece (ESC) in Thessaloniki, the Greek FinMin said the three pylons were:
Recovery based on sustainability. The “Greece 2.0” program was designed and implemented in harmony with the Agenda 2030 of the UN, distributing 37% and 20% of the budget to actions on green and digital transition, respectively.
We plan and adopt tools of public policy supporting the redistribution of funds to sustainable activities, such as an 100% discount to SMEs’ spending on green economy, energy and digitalization. At the same time we gradually integrate the climate dimension on fiscal policy through a green state budget and plan to issue our first state green bond.
We plan and implement national strategies on the basis of international and European best practices. Recently, in cooperation with the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development we presented a strategy to upgrade the Greek capital market through enhancing the sectors of sustainable funding and fintech. We also implement a technical help project from the European Commission on drafting a “National Strategy for Sustainable Funding” with the aim to cover any funding gap towards green transition. Finally, along with our systematic cooperation with European and international institutions, the Finance ministry has set up a working group on sustainable funding and green economic transition with the participation of the Bank of Greece, the Capital Market Commission, the Hellenic Bank Association, academics and exports from the private sector.
