The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, yesterday took advantage of his participation in a press conference without questions to assure from Athens that Spain is “only a hundred days away” from reaching “group immunity” thanks to the vaccination campaign against COVID-19.
Sánchez was received by the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, with whom he later travelled to Delphi to participate in the sixth edition of the Economic Forum, which is being held throughout this week in this Greek city.
At the end of his meeting with his counterpart, which took place at the Maximos Mansion, the Prime Minister’s official headquarters, the two heads of government held a joint press conference, without questions, in which Sanchez said that the EU is going through a “crucial moment” and, therefore, Spain and Greece defend “a high level of ambition for greater European integration”. He also recalled that the two countries are two major recipients of tourism and, for that reason, Sánchez and Mitsotakis reiterated their support for the digital green certificate to restore mobility, an initiative of the Greek Prime Minister himself that has been insistently supported by the Spanish leader.
The two leaders also agreed on “the urgency of presenting and approving the Recovery Plans” and Sánchez took the opportunity to urge the European countries to present their plans “as soon as possible” because “it is very important that, now that the vaccination has been accelerated, we can implement the recovery plans as soon as possible”.
Regarding the other lever for recovery, Pedro Sánchez took advantage of the press conference to assure that the data on vaccination in Spain “invite optimism”, because a third of the adult population has already received at least one dose and just yesterday “six million Spaniards with the full schedule” were reached. With these figures, he declared, “we are only one hundred days away from achieving herd immunity, 70% of the population of Spain immunized; only one hundred days away from achieving the objective we had set ourselves at European level before the summer”. If Sánchez’s announcement is fulfilled, the 70% threshold would be reached around August 18, ten days earlier than the Government’s initial forecasts, which would help Spain to “overcome the worst calamity of humanity in a hundred years”, he declared.
Apart from this, Pedro Sánchez expressed his support for the territorial integrity of Greece and stressed the need to resume the high-level dialogue between the EU and Turkey. Likewise, both leaders considered it necessary to “promote the principles of solidarity, responsibility and humanity in the face of the migration debate” and defended the development of “a strong relationship with the Southern Neighborhood, which confirms the Mediterranean Sea as a space for peace, dialogue and consultation”.
After the bilateral meeting, Sánchez and Mitsotakis attended the inauguration of the sixth edition of the Economic Forum of Delphi, which was attended by the President of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou; the President of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid; the President of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová; and the Commissioner for the Promotion of the European Way of Life and Vice-President of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, with whom the President of the Government also held a bilateral meeting. After the inauguration, Sánchez participated in a conversation with Mitsotakis himself in which he again addressed vaccination and the restoration of international mobility, the future of Europe and the reconstruction of EU countries after the pandemic.
