Mr. Mytilineos stated that the framework in North America is very attractive, noting that in Europe the system is more bureaucratic and things move more slowly. "That's why I think that although Europe has been at the forefront of the green transition, in the end North America will catch up and move faster," he stressed.
“Europeans don't put money on the table, so a lot of companies in the green transition era are generally looking a lot at the North American markets.
Europeans encourage you to do things or kick you out if you don't do things. The North Americans, not just the US, are actually pushing you, actually subsidizing you, and so I think they're going to move much faster than Europe in the future."
Asked about energy prices, he pointed out that in global competition, the US, North America have very cheap energy, probably 20% or 30% of the cost of European energy. “Europe has very high CO2 fines and therefore has a big energy disadvantage.
How can we make up for this? The problem is that we do not need to rely on one "source" as we have done until now, but we need to open up the whole European scene to new suppliers, such as the USA, Qatar, Norway and others. But it will take time and until we get there, the situation can be ugly and difficult again at times," he stressed.
Finally, when asked about the elections, he noted: "We also talked last time about the elections, in 2016. There is a very, very different situation at the moment. Greece is a solid Western democracy, it has a clear orientation towards the EU and NATO, it is not Turkey. It's a very different story. When elections are held whoever wins, it's a normal process, like in the old democracies."
