The Clean Energy Revolution drives robust and rapid growth

By Mr George Peristeris*

The Clean Energy Revolution drives robust and rapid growth.

The Recovery Fund can render Greece a different country, extroverted and competitive. Considering the energy industry only, the green transition can turn the country into a regional hub for the production and storage of clean energy and a net exporter of RES energy. We can now leverage our national wealth, namely the solar and wind potential and geophysical relief and become a "natural battery" for the whole of Southeastern Europe.
The diffusion of reduced energy costs through all the strategic industries of the economy will offer the country a significant competitive advantage while relieving the balance of external payments.

We can now do social justice for our young people.

Our country is fortunate enough to have competent Greek young women and men with a solid education. Our children have the right to be employed in well-paid jobs in exciting sectors of the economy in their homeland. They are entitled to be strongly motivated to stay here and work, or, if abroad, to return. This is precisely the opportunity the Recovery Fund offers: we can now reinforce quality employment, fight unemployment and remedy the injustice the new generations have suffered. If we make it, we will have earned our country’s future back. Technology, reforms, green investments and sustainable infrastructure are nothing but the means to that end. Because equitable growth is the one that takes into account those who have been wronged the most.

We must all overcome the last obstacle together on our way to a better future.

Instigators of the Greek plan ‘Greece 2.0’ deserve credit for conceiving and devising what has been described by European officials as one of the best in the entire European Union, already approved by the European Commission. To realise it, however, it is imperative to overcome the chronic European and Greek bureaucratic weaknesses. At a national level, the time constraint on absorbing funds demands reforms that will allow otherwise time-consuming processes to be completed at a phenomenal rate. At the same time, Brussels must also demonstrate flexibility and speed to a much greater extent than in the past. Lastly, we, Greek entrepreneurs, must also constructively support the effort.
Our Group’s, GEK TERNA Group’s, practical contribution to the national effort is estimated at 5 billion euro in new projects and investments and 20,000 new, quality jobs within the next five years.
We look to our country’s and our Group’s future with optimism and investment patriotism, doing today what we have also been doing for a long time, namely, investing in Greece, supporting in practice the Greek economy and society.

Mr. G. Peristeris is the Chairman and CEO of GEK TERNA Group

Republished from Kathimerini's CEOs 2021 special edition