At the 18th annual meeting of the International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds in Athens, Greece’s Minister of National Economy and Finance and Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis urged sovereign investors to combine strategic objectives with commercial discipline. He also reviewed measures to deepen Greek capital markets, including a children’s investment savings account due for a parliamentary vote. Strategic projects should face stricter financial scrutiny rather than exemptions. Public policy objectives assigned to investment funds should be established through transparent mandates, clear governance rules and measurable accountability, rather than informal political instructions.
Sovereign funds should remain faithful to their distinct mandates, rather than treating stabilization, savings and development functions as interchangeable. Public investment bodies should not conceal fiscal commitments, and their investments should involve genuine risk and transparent accounting. At the European level, Pierrakakis identified fragmented financial markets, rather than insufficient savings, as the obstacle to investment at scale. He backed the Savings and Investments Union and argued that lending must be complemented by equity financing and risk sharing. Investment alongside international sovereign funds should operate under clear governance arrangements, return expectations and exit provisions.
For Greece, the approaching end of Recovery and Resilience Facility support increases the need for productive private investment and deeper capital markets. Previously implemented fund manager reforms provide greater tax certainty on permanent establishment, recognition procedures for qualifying managers and a 5% tax rate on carried interest. The proposed children’s investment savings account would provide supplementary government contributions within statutory limits. Pierrakakis also pointed to the Athens Stock Exchange’s integration into Euronext as a route to broader European capital and liquidity, and called for mergers and acquisitions to help Greek businesses reach the scale needed to compete internationally.