Athens News Agency: News in English, 06-09-19

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Inner Cabinet discusses preparations for extreme bad weather

[02] Papandreou: ministers should resign over MEVGAL

[03] Papoulias' address in Berlin focuses on EU

[04] Corruption will not be tolerated, government stresses

[01] Inner Cabinet discusses preparations for extreme bad weather

Discussion focused on preparing state mechanisms and improving coordination to cope with any extreme weather phenomena that may occur.

Public Order Minister Vyron Polydoras, who attended the meeting that also included Civil Protection general secretary Panagiotis Fourlas, told reporters afterwards that many government ministries share the responsibility of dealing with extreme weather conditions and the problems they create, adding that the discussion had focused on better coordination among them.

Interior, Public Administration and Decentralization Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos underlined the effort being made for timely preparation, pointing out that coordination between the state mechanism and government ministries is imperative.

He also said that the state mechanism had been more effective last year in dealing with the problems created, compared to the past, and hopefully this year it will do even better.

Polydoras, commenting on the corruption phenomena, pointed out that when the Public Order Ministry was notified by the Development Ministry regarding the recent MEVGAL incident, it had dealt with the issue successfully, adding that the rest (the appearance of the offenders in handcuffs, political responsibilities and so forth) are part of political rhetoric in which he does not take part.

The Public Order Minister underlined that the important point is the government�s stance of zero tolerance to such phenomena regardless of who is involved, a decision taken long before any issue had arisen.

[02] Papandreou: ministers should resign over MEVGAL

According to PASOK's leader, the country was going through a deep political, economic and moral crisis, for which the government was crucially responsible.

"It is self-evident that the prime minister should demand the resignation of ministers, who bear huge responsibilities for their choices, their appointments, their practices, the untransparency and degradation of democratic institutions. I am afraid, however, that even if resignations are made under the general outcry, the prime minister will stay in hiding because he cannot extricate himself from underground commitments, within and outside his party," Papandreou told reporters.

Stressing that PASOK had made specific proposals, he called on Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis to restore institutions, principles and rules that Karamanlis had himself circumvented.

The present arbitrary regime suited the government, which had imposed it on all aspects of public life, PASOK's leader added.

He also claimed that new aspects of the scandal had been revealed on Tuesday, as well as the government's efforts to cover it up, and that New Democracy's continued presence in government would inevitably lead to some people abusing their positions and plundering public funds.

This was the result of ND's conscious policies, which were more concerned with the privileges of those within its ranks than the problems of Greek society, Papandreou continued.

Papandreou also criticised the prime minister for failing to discuss education policy at any cabinet meeting, in spite of his proclamations, and leading the education sector into a crisis, while stressng that PASOK had positions on education.

[03] Papoulias' address in Berlin focuses on EU

Concerning Turkey's EU accession course, President Papoulias reiterated that Greece "supports the strategy of further enlargement, without, however, regarding it as a mechanical procedure or a procedure which obeys to geostrategic or other logics and not to inflexible European principles and values which we constructed through extremely painful historical procedures."

Papoulias noted that the Europen Union "can neither be absent nor silent, when crises arise such as that of Lebanon."

Regarding in particular the prospects of Romania's and Bulgaria's accession to the EU, the Greek President of the Republic noted that "their incorporation in the Union will strengthen stability in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole, while a corresponding positive result will also be the accession of the Western Balkans, when the relevant procedures are fulfilled."

Papoulias further expressed his conviction that Germany's presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2007 "will contribute in the upgrading of the European dialogue and will work for a Europe with a worldwide mission and humane face, for a model Europe of social cohesion, solidarity and growth, for a superforce Europe of humaneness and sensitivity."

On Tuesday, President Papoulias will meet with Chancellor Angela Merkel and with leaders of the opposition, while he will also meet the mayor of Berlin.

Papoulias is accompanied by National Education and Religious Affairs Minister Marietta Yiannakou and Deputy Foreign Minister Evripidis Stylianidis.

[04] Corruption will not be tolerated, government stresses

He also denied that Employment Minister Savvas Tsitouridis had been asked to resign by the prime minister, following allegations that the minister might be linked to the three men accused in the MEVGAL blackmail case.

"No, there is no such issue. Every minister enjoys the confidence of the prime minister," Roussopoulos said in reply to reporters' questions.

He also denied that the minister had offered his resignation.

Earlier on Tuesday, Tsitouridis himself had answered questions concerning his recent decision to appoint two of the three men accused in the case, customs broker Panagiotis Anagnostopoulos and former Competition Commission general director Panagiotis Adamopoulos, to a special committee responsible for evaluating a tender for an advertising campaign for the EQUAL programme.

Tsitouridis defended his decision, saying that the selection was based on the positions occupied by the two men, which appeared to provide the right guarantees of objectivity and authority, and that this was a standard practice followed by all ministries and all governments. He stressed that there had been no reason to doubt their integrity until their involvement in the scandal was revealed by the government itself and that they had been replaced as soon as the case came to light.

"Persistence in this systematic effort by some parties to involve me in a case for which I could have no responsibility is both unfruitful and unjust in my opinion," Tsitouridis stressed.

Questioned about the minister's statements, Roussopoulos said that the minister had not consulted with Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis beforehand but did inform the premier of his statements afterward.

Regarding the criteria used for appointing people to state committees, the spokesman said that these were usually people with guarantees of status or authority, but stressed that the important thing was how a government reacted when such guarantees did not reflect reality, stressing that political responsibility arose in the case of cover-ups rather than exposure of wrong-doing.

In this case, Roussopoulos added, political jurisdiction for handling the MEVGAL case belonged to the development and public order ministries, who from the first gave strict instructions that the case be fully investigated and all the evidence brought to light.

"It is a very important that when a government becomes aware that two or three people are not honouring the oath they have given, that it should not feign indifference, as happened in the past, but impose the law," he added.

The spokesman compared the government's stance to that of previous PASOK governments over the DEKA stock market scandal, claiming that they allowed over 80 cases to become statute barred through inaction.

Regarding the Competition Commission itself, Roussopoulos admitted that the MEVGAL affair was a blow to the Commission's standing but also pointed out that the complaints about the blackmailers were orginally addressed to Competition Commission president Spiros Zisimopoulos.

Meanwhile, in a meeting with Zisimopoulos on Tuesday, Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas and Deputy Development Minister Giannis Papathanasiou asked that the Competition Commission file a civil suit in the case now being investigated by justice.

Sioufas asked Zisimopoulos to accelerate the re-assessment of Competition Commission recommendations over the period when the accused Adamopoulos was a general director and issue decisions more quickly in order to protect the Commission's standing and work.

The minister has also written to the State's Legal Council asking that the state be represented as a civil suitor in the case, in order to make the charges stronger and to ask compensation for damage to the state's prestige.

The probe into the Commission's past cases was launched after the northern Greek dairy industry MEVGAL said it had been blackmailed with the threat of a Competition Commission fine. A police operation last week led to Anagnostopoulos, Adamopoulos and Thessaloniki merchant Constantinos Konstantinidis, who have all been remanded in custody pending trial.

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