Government spokesperson Yiannis Economou on Monday said that “the wildfires are a consequence of climate change. We are facing hundreds of wildfires, just in the last three days we had 141 fires. Most of them were placed under control very quickly. This did not happen by chance but because we are following the plan we had prepared,” he stated, briefing the press on Monday.
Regarding the wildfires currently in progress, Economou said that the fire in Dadia was very difficult, adding that “the efforts are focused on the southwestern front”. Economou said that the government had learned from the bad experiences in 2021 and that the overall picture, while difficult, was clearly better than in the previous year.
“We do not have victims and we managed to get the wildfires under control faster,” he said, adding that the time for assessments and comparisons will come later.
“The government will strive, at Tuesday’s important EU Energy Ministers’ meeting, to seek an exception from the European Commission’s proposal for horizontal 15 percent reduction of natural gas consumption, with the average of the last five years as the base comparison level. Instead we will seek the base level to be consumption in the last year,” Economou said, in response to press questions.
He also pointed out that the government and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis have tabled a series of proposals regarding the energy crisis and the supply chain.
APE, General Consulate of Tampa
