National Economy and Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierakakis met today with European Union Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth Wopke Hoekstra.
The meeting covered taxation, the green transition and investment, with a shared focus on strengthening European competitiveness, ensuring affordable energy prices and protecting vulnerable households.
They then made the following statements:
Kyriakos Pierakakis:
I welcome Mr Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth, to Athens.
Our meeting comes at a critical time for the European economy, as pressure from energy costs affects people’s purchasing power and businesses’ competitiveness. We share the aim of combining the achievement of climate targets with affordable energy, strong European production, more jobs and meaningful support for citizens.
Our policies must combine environmental protection with economic growth and social cohesion. They must provide meaningful solutions to households’ needs, strengthen business competitiveness and create new opportunities for investment and jobs.
To this end, Greece is advancing its Social Climate Plan, worth almost €4.8 billion, with measures to upgrade homes’ energy efficiency, provide social housing and promote sustainable transport, with particular emphasis on supporting vulnerable households.
Greece is showing in practice that the green transition can go hand in hand with strong economic growth. Our economy continues to grow faster than the eurozone average, and we aim to maintain this momentum by boosting investment and competitiveness.
Tax simplification, reducing administrative burdens and improving tax compliance play a key role in this effort. We support the European Commission’s initiatives to create a simpler tax environment that will facilitate investment and strengthen the competitiveness of the single market.
We welcome the European Commission’s “Mind the Gap” report, which is an important tool for monitoring tax compliance and identifying scope for improvement in member states.
In this area, Greece has achieved a particularly significant success, recording the biggest reduction in the VAT compliance gap of any European Union member state between 2019 and 2023. This shows that sustained efforts to curb tax evasion are delivering measurable results.
By digitising tax administration, introducing myDATA, connecting cash registers to POS terminals and adopting e-invoicing, we are fundamentally changing how our tax system operates, with support from European funding through the Cohesion Funds and the Recovery and Resilience Facility.
And progress continues. Initial estimates for 2024 show that Greece’s VAT gap fell below 10% for the first time.
This performance means greater tax fairness, healthier competition for compliant businesses and higher public revenues, without an increase in tax rates.
Every euro we recover from tax evasion is a euro we can return to citizens.
In the second half of 2027, Greece will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. I look forward to working even more closely with my friend the Commissioner on joint European initiatives to promote investment and the competitiveness of the European economy, with citizens’ wellbeing at their heart.
Wopke Hoekstra:
Thank you very much, dear Minister, ladies and gentlemen.
I am very pleased to be back in beautiful Greece and to have the opportunity to meet the Minister again at the Ministry. As many of you know, I have been visiting Greece increasingly often, as I did in my previous roles as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Finance. I am particularly pleased each time, and greatly value the cooperation and friendship we share.
I would like to repeat what I said earlier today in Parliament: We truly admire the way the Greek government manages the economy, promotes innovation and plays a leading role in Europe, particularly in public debt management. I believe all this reflects the government’s professionalism and foresight, and those of the Ministry in particular. This is extremely important, especially at a time when Europe is being called on to strengthen its own competitiveness.
The second issue I would like to address, which we also discussed today, is climate policy. From the perspective of my responsibilities, I believe it is essential, at both national and European level, to forge closer links between climate action, our competitiveness and our independence. We must ensure that all member states reap economic benefits from the green transition, and that the climate action required is also economically and commercially viable.
In this context, I would like to highlight something I find extremely impressive: the progress Greece has made in renewable energy, and the fact that it is now a net exporter of energy from renewable sources. This is a truly remarkable achievement.
Alongside broader economic issues, we also had an in-depth discussion on taxation. Here, too, there are developments in Greece that I find truly impressive.
The first concerns an issue the Minister mentioned earlier and which is also examined in our “Mind the Gap” report (a European Commission report examining the tax gap, that is, the difference between the taxes that should be collected and those that are ultimately collected). Unfortunately, the so-called tax gap exists throughout Europe and in every country in the world: the difference between the tax revenue the state is entitled to collect and what it ultimately collects.
Greece has made very significant progress in reducing this gap. At European level, we are all seeking to make further progress in this direction, because this is revenue the state is entitled to collect and then use to meet its needs.
The second issue, which is also at the centre of our attention in Europe and which I know is of particular concern to the Minister, is simplification. This applies to taxation but, frankly, to the economy as a whole and, I would say, to society as well.
If you ask an average European teacher, businessperson or nurse whether we have made their life easier or harder over the past 10 or 15 years, I think we all know what the answer will be.
That is why simplification is extremely important.
Another issue we discuss regularly, and on which I particularly value exchanging views with the Minister because of his deep knowledge and insight, is digital transformation and innovation. More specifically, we discuss how we can use tax policy and the regulatory framework to further boost economic growth.
This is an important part of our ongoing dialogue and was certainly a key subject at our meeting today.
Thank you very much. As I said, it is truly wonderful to be back here and to have had the opportunity for this discussion. I am sure we will continue it.”