“Shipping and our islands constitute a comparative advantage for Greece,” the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy Vasilis Kikilias said on Sunday during his statement on the 2026 Budget in the Plenary.
The minister underlined that the economic model must be transformed on this basis because “shipping professions and the ecosystem built around them, the ports, the islands and the cities that are bathed in the sea constitute a better answer to the new generation and its anxieties for the future, for better paid jobs here in our country.”
Kikilias pointed out that “shipping is the first in the world and shows us how we can exploit our comparative advantages in order to negotiate better conditions for a better and stable productive economy.”
The minister said that in 2026 and the following years, investments and projects will reach 1,498,000,000 euros. Our remote islands, coastal border areas and cities that once thrived on shipping will not be left behind. We are activating the “hubs” of development and entrepreneurship (small, family, medium, local government, etc.) in these areas, Kikilias said, so that they can get going again and regain the prosperity that both the areas and the related professions once had.
