Balkan gateway: Greek gas exports save the day as renewables shine at home

On 25 June, Greeks will head to the polls for the second time in two months as a landslide win for the centre-right New Democracy (ND) party in the 21 May general elections still left it short of a parliamentary majority. ND’s leader, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who served as prime minister of Greece from July 2019 until three days after the election, turned down a mandate to form a coalition, as did the left-wing Syriza and centre-left Pasok parties, which came second and third respectively on 21 May, creating the need for a repeat vote.

Mitsotakis is confident his party will achieve absolute majority on 25 June – a hope backed by recent opinion polls. On 5 June, which marked World Environment Day, he reiterated his party’s environmental and energy plans, tweeting that a “green Greece constitutes an essential pillar” of ND’s manifesto. He pledged that, within six years, 80% of Greece’s power generation will come from renewable sources – up from 39% in 2022, if one excludes hydro, and well above the EU-wide target of 45% by 2030, as set out in the European Commission’s RePowerEU plan, which aims to end the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, while tackling the climate crisis.