If I’m counting right, this must be Mr Mitsotakis’ tenth consecutive visit to the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) as President of New Democracy and his seventh as Prime Minister.

And if I’m not mistaken, it must be his toughest one to date.

Time and the ravages of time are a heavy burden in politics. Especially if they come interspersed with controversies badly bungled from a communicational point of view.

Of course, Mitsotakis still has two years until the next elections and, as things stand today, he does not seem to be under any immediate threat.

But he has to do something. We cannot fill the months between now and 2027 chatting about OPEKEPE and the cons pulled off by various Cretan mafiosi. Mainly because no one can know what may come next.

I remember Nicolas Sarkozy saying years ago that “You cannot control the news, all you can do is create it”.

And of course if you don’t make it, someone else will.

Traditionally, the TIF is an opportunity for the Prime Minister to impose their agenda of choice. The agenda is usually of an economic nature, perhaps because of the commercial nature of the event.

In any case, this is the sphere in which the government will be judged and other candidates for office evaluated.

After all, it’s a shared goal: The administration wants to rebuild a power base that has been put to the test over the last two years. And the Opposition wants to create a power base that will work in their favor.

The question is whether the Prime Minister will be able to create the news he’s chosen, starting from the TIF. And especially if he has settled on what that news should be.

Which brings us back to a perennial problem of Mitsotakis’ second four-year term: the lack of a clear and unambiguous agenda.

After all, no government in the world can trumpet its relaunch to the world, until it has decided what its focus is going to be.

I understand that, in the social sphere, the government wants to regain the shaken confidence of the “middle class”. Which is reasonable and only to be expected. That’s what government majorities are made of.

But it’s undoubtedly easier said than done. And it certainly cannot be pulled off without a plan and a method.

So Mitsotakis has an opportunity to impose his agenda at the TIF. We don’t know if he’ll avail himself of it.

What we do know, though, as we move toward the end of this four-year term is that he won’t get many more.