Petros Varelidis

The hundreds of thousands of dead fish that flooded the Pagasetic Gulf off the eastern coast of mainland Greece in recent days died of natural causes and not of poisoning by an industrial effluent or some other toxin, an Environment Ministry official said on Saturday.

The government is distancing itself from the overambitious goals set by the European Union for the green transition, evaluating the effects on the growth of the Greek economy, the fiscal margins for the subsidies required to achieve these goals, and the endurance of households.