“A few hours ago, the leader of the opposition took a deeply problematic action. He republished a post by Ms Theodorou, who is – as I read here – PASOK’s deputy finance minister, a post against Soti Triantafyllou, a leading Greek woman, writer and intellectual. I consider this to be an unacceptable action. Mr Androulakis and his party may disagree, as is his right, with what Mrs Triantafyllou said, but I do not think it is appropriate and goes beyond the limits and institutional boundaries of Mr Androulakis. Androulakis, in his capacity as chairman of the opposition party, such a move and, because we live in the country that many are “a la carte sensitive” with the rule of law, I expect the known – unknown, “sensitive” to do the appropriate at the level of communications and in any case, this whole thing could end – days that is – with the realization of his mistake Mr. Androulakis and withdraw this republication,” said government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis in an interview with SKAI 100.3 FM journalist Vassilis Chiotis.
On the lifting of the immunity of MPs, Marinakis said: “Let’s take them in order. Let’s take it in order. From the first moment we said, through me, as a government, that the announcement of the European prosecutor’s office was and is a serious development. When the prosecutor’s office decides to request the waiver of the immunity of certain members of parliament, not because they are under trial or, much worse, guilty, as some have already judged, but because this is a prerequisite for them to provide explanations. If they were not MPs, they would simply have been called upon to explain themselves, what would happen next is a decision for each individual case of justice. The case-by-case examination, as was said from the outset, had nothing to do with the waiver of immunity. In any case, I explained this the next day at the briefing of the political editors. The waiver of immunity after 19 becomes in fact the rule, unless a case falls within the scope of parliamentary duties and, in any case, the waiver of immunity was requested by the Members themselves in order to answer to the judiciary, and they themselves declared their position and, as each of them put it, their innocence. Therefore, anyone who talks about lifting immunity for our Members is ‘opening doors’. The case-by-case examination has to do with the political assessment of each case.”
“The political assessment does not make judicial judgments of guilt or acquittal. The policy assessment is about the facts of a case as they emerge and emerge when they come out in the public domain. But, if I may say, because you started with an audio of Mr. Androulakis, the leader of the opposition and president of PASOK. What does PASOK say in simple words so that people can understand? That ‘because X number of New Democracy MPs will be under the immunity waiver in a few days, there is a question of the legitimacy of the government, because it is a “government of the vindicated or controlled”, because they adapted it, because the vindicated was also legally inaccurate. I sat down and looked it up, it doesn’t take much, you don’t have to be “Inspector Clouseau” to figure it out. From 2023 to date, that is, in the current parliamentary term, the immunity of PASOK MPs has been lifted a total of 7 times. In fact, considering that PASOK’s parliamentary group is 32 people, that’s 20%. It does not mean that all cases are equally serious. It does not mean that the offences are of the same gravity, but I will tell you by way of example that two of them, obviously I am not even going to go into nomenclature, I have complete respect for the names and the cases, are for breach of duty and one is for false identity. I say it again, these people, like our own MPs, may or may not be acquitted, may or may not have any involvement. Have you ever seen any of us, in any of these cases, then say that Mr. Androulakis has a “parliamentary team of suspects or controlled by the judiciary”? These are unthinkable things to say,” he added.
Referring to the transfer of the OPEKEPE to the AADE, the government spokesman said: “But, even if it is delayed, we take responsibility for it, the big change has been made, OPEKEPE has been transferred to the AADE. Why is this a big change? Because even if one now wants to get to ask for a bigger subsidy, as you know very well, one cannot call the AADE and ask for a bigger tax refund, nor can one ask for a smaller ENFIA to pay. So this cut, which will never again allow anyone to intervene, either for something illegal, which in any case this is criminal and is being examined by the judiciary, or even for something legal, you will not be able to ask for anything. Only the parliamentary group of the New Democracy voted for this. So, those who are shouting from the opposition about illegal farm subsidies, they did not vote for the cut, even if it was delayed, by us who came so that an end could be put to this phenomenon.”
On whether there are thoughts of abolishing the cross preference, Marinakis said: “I think any proposal reduces the power of voters – because what is the cross? It is the expression of citizens over persons – I think it is a proposal that is moving in the wrong direction.”
“Any proposal that has a large number of incumbent MPs, any proposal that has a one-seat logic where there will be one candidate over there – in the German model there is one in every single seat, the one that people think is best does not win – is not moving in the right direction, it has characteristics of elitism in my opinion. I personally think that, so as not to be misunderstood, it is a personal position because you are asking me and I answer honestly: for me the most important thing in politics is the people’s verdict and I intend to be in politics only as many years as the people want with their vote,” he added.
Finally, on the Prime Minister’s announcement regarding the ban on access to social media for children under 15 years of age and in response to the question why it was made now, he said “because it is something that takes time to implement and technically, a lot of preparation has to be done, this legislation is not a panacea, it is not something that you press a button “once a month” and “cut off” social media to those under 15 years of age. There has to be an understanding and preparation at European level, hence the Prime Minister’s letter to Ursula von der Leyen, it is a battle that we have to be all together to win. Parents, the state, society, all the other parties, it is a European battle, not just a Greek one.”
