Athens News Agency: News in English, 07-08-31

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

CONTENTS

[01] Karamanlis, Hubner confer over wildfires

[02] Papandreou pledges for social security

[03] Gov't defines fire-stricken areas

[01] Karamanlis, Hubner confer over wildfires

Among those attending the government meeting were Economy and Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis, Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas, Environment, Town Planning and Public Works Minister George Souflias, Agriculture Minister Evangelos Basiakos and former interior minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos, who has stepped down from his post on account of the upcoming elections.

Karamanlis earlier had a meeting with Pavlopoulos without the other ministers present.

After her meeting with Karamanlis, the European Commissioner for regional policy noted that "all of us in Europe, across Europe have been developing this deeper and deeper feeling of solidarity with burning Greece".

She extended her condolences to those that had lost their families or their friends but also expressed the admiration felt in Europe for those who lost their life to defend their country, men and women, their land and houses.

"I am here to do very concrete things, because I believe that after the solidarity shown by all European states in the first days of the unprecedented disaster today, the time has come to accelerate the work on how to cope with the mid-term and long-term consequences of this disaster," she added.

In earlier statements regarding her visit, Hubner said the Commission will fund specific actions to help the recovery of the damaged regions as soon as the assessment of damages was completed and an action plan finalised by Greek authorities.

"We had already on Monday, the first visit of the representatives of the Greek government in Brussels on the 27th of August, agreed on the basic issues, we agreed to exploit all possible avenues of helping the people of Greece in restoring to normal their lives, the local economies," she pointed out.

She said the areas where Greece and the Commission could work together had already been identified and discussed on Friday with Karamanlis, with the most urgent being to exploit the possibility of using the European Solidarity Fund. Hubner stressed the willingness of all EU institutions to go very fast with procedures related to this Fund.

Apart from this, she said that in talks with Greece�s finance ministry they had examined all possibilities for assisting Greece, including the prospect of using the "still existing European fund 2000-2006?, while they were also negotiating finalising the operational programmes for 2007-2013.

"I hope to finalise negotiations at the beginning of October. Immediately after that we can release the advanced payments," the Commissioner clarified, adding that new funds should come to Greece within the present year. Other avenues for funding being explored included agricultural policy, which was discussed by Greece�s deputy Finance Minister Christos Folias in Brussels at the beginning of the week, she added.

?The Commission is prepared to go very fast with all the technical, legal and financial assistance we can deliver to Greeks, to the authorities, so that we reduce the damage and the consequences as fast as possible,? she concluded on Friday.

Earlier, Hubner had underlined that "the European Commission is determined to explore all possible means of support and assure the mobilisation of available funds in order to help the affected citizens and local economies as well as ensure the restoration of the natural landscape."

She explained that Greek authorities have 10 weeks to present to the Commission the application for support from the European solidarity fund, while the Commission services were ready to offer any kind of guidance that may be required.

A threshold of intervention of the EU Solidarity Fund in case of major catastrophes has been fixed for each EU member-state and for Greece the threshold is 1.066 billion euros of damage. Given that initial damage assessments by authorities stand at around four billion euros, Hubner noted that there was a "real prospect" of help from the solidarity fund.

She said this aid could be used to help finance a series of the most urgent emergency operations, such as provisional housing, the repair of basic infrastructures such as electricity, water, roads and cleaning up of devastated land and villages, while these measures will be agreed between the Commission and the Greek authorities before the payment of the grant.

Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis thanked the Commissioner and the EU Commission for their very quick response to the major catastrophe suffered by Greece. He said that Greek authorities will work very quickly in cooperation with the Commission, keeping within the deadlines, so as to make a full assessment of the damage.

"We will have the fastest possible cooperation with the Commission in order to move quickly and efficiently for the reconstruction and development of the areas damaged," he stressed.

He added that a financial estimate of the damage had not yet been made and announced that the prime minister will be making statements concerning the main directions of the reconstruction and development programme for the fire-stricken areas.

Also due in Greece on Friday night is European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who will express the Commission's support for the victims of the destructive fires.

According to a Commission spokesman, Barroso's visit intends to underline that the devastating fires in Greece were a European catastrophe and that Europe will not abandon the citizens in Greece that were victims of this disaster. It was also a sign of support and solidarity for those who had lost members of their family, their friends and their property to the flames.

Caption: Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis (R) meets with EU Commissioner Danuta Hubner at his office in Athens on Friday, Aug. 31, 2007. ANA-MPA / M. MAROGIANNI

[02] Papandreou pledges for social security

In echoing a similar pledge nearly two weeks ago by his main rival, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, Papandreou nevertheless strongly charged that the ruling New Democracy party "is hiding its intentions regarding social security reform".

In terms of his spending plans, Papandreou again promised to increase pensions for farm couples to 950 euros, 500 for a single farmer, while promising to double the number of pensioners receiving a low-income bonus (EKAS) as well as to safeguard pensioners' buying power.

In turning to the timely issue of wildfire destruction, Papandreou said PASOK's reconstruction plan will be presented in the next few days, "which we will implement as of Sept. 17 (the day after elections), rebuilding everything better than before."

In continuing his criticism of the government, he said it was grossly incompetent, while charging that any future ND government will "increase indirect taxes, sell-out state enterprises, demolish the social security system, complete the downgrading of the public education and health systems, increase the cost-of-living for families, increase (social) inequities and complete the politicization (of the state)," among others.

He spoke at an event at the Peace & Friendship indoor stadium in coastal Athens.

Caption: ANA-MPA file photo of Papandreou.

[03] Gov't defines fire-stricken areas

Environment, Town Planning and Public Works Minister George Souflias explained that, following the signing of the joint decision, support measures for these areas could begin to be implemented from the following day. At noon, Souflias also had a meeting by the president of the newly created solidarity and emergency fund for the fire victims, Petros Molyviatis.

Molyviatis informed him that 40 million euros had been funneled into the solidarity fund up until Thursday, while donations and pledges totalling an even greater sum had been made by private citizens.

The environment minister announced the immediate start of works to protect against flooding and soil erosion, with priority given to sensitive areas like Ancient Olympia and Zaharo.

Teams of ministry engineers are continuing to record damages in the fire-stricken areas, with Souflias estimating that the record will be completed over the weekend in Arcadia, Evia and Ilia, unless there were more fires in the meantime. He said it was very likely that he would visit Ilia prefecture, in the western Peloponnese, himself.

Caption: Tourists walk through the ancient Stadium of Olympia on Thursday, 30 August 2007. The archeological site at Olympia again opened to the public as the last of the wildfires in the area were extinguished. ANA-MPA/ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU

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