Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, speaking at the Global Summit 鈥淗ealth & Prosperity through Immunisation鈥 co-organised by the European Union, GAVI and the Gates Foundation in Brussels, announced that Greece is increasing its contribution to GAVI from 2 million euros to 5 million euros. The Greek Premier referred to a personal story that involved his mother.
Mitsotakis’ full speech is as follows:
鈥淎llow me to not use my prepared remarks because I don鈥檛 want to repeat what has already been said by very eloquent speakers before me. Let me just share with you a deeply personal story. My late mother contracted polio during the second World War, and she received the best possible care. She lived a fulfilling but very difficult and challenging life. She was one of the lucky ones. Many other children did not have such a future.
And as I was listening to Mr. Gates speaking about polio eradication, I was thinking of the tremendous progress that science has made over the past 50 years. And I was also thinking about the tremendous contribution that GAVI has made as a model private-public partnership, delivering vaccines to tens of millions of children, saving millions of lives.
And I believe that it is our duty, our contribution, to make sure that this work continues at a time when leading donors are stepping back, but also at a time when vaccine scepticism is rising across the world. I鈥檓 very happy and honoured that Europe, Team Europe, is stepping up to make up for the funding gap that has resulted from the decision of other leading donors not to continue with funding GAVI.
On behalf of the Greek people, I would like to announce that an initial recommendation by the Ministry of Finance was to contribute 鈧2 million to the GAVI cause, but I鈥檝e decided to increase that to 鈧5 million. I was thinking that some of us came back from the NATO Summit in order to make sure that we are with you here today to reconfirm our support to GAVI. I was thinking that if we can afford, and rightly so, I may add, to spend 5% of our GDP on defence over the next years, we certainly can afford to contribute 5 million to GAVI鈥.