2026 18th Annual Capital Link Shipping & Marine Services Forum | Government & Industry Perspectives

Before coming to the investment on the people, I would add on what the minister said about the investment in the decarbonization.

It is obvious that investment will come from the private industry.

So What we need to accommodate is the regulatory framework.

And I think it's much obvious now than before that it needs to be a framework that will help them proceed, will help them to feel that they will be there for the future to come and what they will decide now, it will not change.

So the stability is very important and this is the time for collaboration between the countries.

And I say this because it's not only a matter of the European Union, it's a matter of global cooperation.

And we have seen for the very first time at the IMO and one week before that we had the intersessional meeting for the net zero framework that if we do not cooperate for something that will work for everybody, we will fail.

And we are not ready to fail at this aspect.

So coming to the people for Cyprus, shipping cannot work without the people.

And we have understood that from the beginning.

And during our presidency of the Council of the European Union, we have put people at the center of our priorities.

And for the very first time, we had a common declaration signed by all 27 members of the European Union aiming at the skilling and reskilling of the seafarers.

Because we move so much with the vessels, with new buildings, but we tend to forget that it is people behind the vessels.

And we had examples at the Straits of Hormuz, how people were at the center, how we were expecting from the people on the vessels to react on a situation that never happened before.

And what is important for us is to support also the private industry about education.

And this is what we've done together with Nicholas and the Tsakos family.

The government of the Republic of Cyprus has approved the first merchant academy, a private one in Chios, which gives the opportunity for the very first time to students that finished from the Lyceum in Chios to continue their studies and to be skilled, to be reskilled and to be ready to work not only on the Tsakos vessels, but to all vessels around the world.

And we're very proud as a country because their vision became a reality because we were able to understand that we needed to proceed.

with this so

again that's how quick and pragmatic the Cypriot authorities is unfortunately in Greece we still have this archaic legislation that universities can only be run by the state So by having a European country like Cyprus sponsoring our new academy, right now we have 200 young men and women.

I was there a couple of days ago and some of us here.

The island of Chios is, I would say, one of the epicenters of seafaring.

So you have a lot of young.

It's a small island, but it still has a population of 60, 70 people.

The majority of the people go to sea.