The Alternate Minister of National Defence Dimitris Vitsas declared the opening of the 1st two-day conference of Armed Forces and Domestic Defence Industry, on Thursday 07 December 2017, organized by HNDGS, GDDIA and Association of Hellenic Defence Manufacturer, on the “Implementation of Objectives and Actions of National Defence Industry Strategies”.

The Alternate Minister of National Defence mentioned:

“I am happy to declare the opening of the conference. The 4 previous speeches defined the overview of the conference. At the same time, the representatives of companies which are engaged in defence industry, must consider the fact that we do not only discuss the Armed Forces of the country but, at the same time, we discuss applications which do not regard only defence; this is why we have also representatives of other ministries.    

GDDIA presented what we have done and Mr. Rozolis and Mr. Troulinos, in their address, referred to certain things which we have not done yet. Let us also see a more complete framework and I would like to say some things about it.

The Armed Forces have certain needs. Our defence industry is called on to play its own role in covering certain needs. It will play this role in two manners:
Defence Industry is called on to solve the problems of the Armed Forces. We must make this clear at this moment: that it is the needs of the Armed Forces and the Ministry that come first, and after them companies’ interests. It is therefore very important for you to know what the needs are and how you can cover them.

The second thing is: how can we cover the needs? We need, on one hand, self-sufficiency and, on the other hand, complementarity.

In relation to the level of self-sufficiency, we must recognize and see how we will develop our capabilities and abilities. For example, can we build a ship? Can we make ammunition? Yes, we can. But up to which level?

We promote the concept of cooperation at two levels: cooperation among you which – allow me to say – is not always well expressed. A complementarity is required for us to solve the problems. The second level is the cooperation with companies from abroad.
This will bring investments to this country and it will stabilize the financial relations of this country with other countries. This is why we insist on the industrial participation which is not only a financial issue, but a substantial one as well; that is you can earn the industrial participation to the extent at which you can implement it.
It is not only GDDIA that is interested in realizing the National Defence Industry Strategy, but also the General Staffs whose role will be upgraded as far as planning and execution of armament programmes is concerned; but there are the companies too.

At a second level, there is the issue of what kind of investments we will make and at which level.

I received the first serious effort to change the law on procurements in my office two days ago. On one hand, we are right when we say that there is still much work to be done; on the other hand, we should say that this situation will not last for ever.

Let us decide together to set an objective which should be specific, and program our activities in order to achieve it. This law will have been voted until next Easter, but it should not be an one-time law, but a law that will be applied for a decade. This practically means that we all should help.

There are defence enterprises that endured the difficulties of the crisis. But we too, the Ministry of National Defence endured the crisis. When I study past years’ figures, for many years I find rich budgets and for some years I find an almost zero account.  

We have an objective regarding the small amount we have already, 500 million euro is a budget of armament programmes, maintenance etc.; half of which, until 2019, will be spent on payments of previous years and the rest will be used. So we can use everything fully and effectively.

If we endured the crisis and now we progress to a new course, away from the commitments of the financial MOUs, we need, among other things, a plan, firstly, and a system of motivations and obligations, secondly.

We often speak of entrepreneurship and some people simply say “taxes should be reduced”. But I should also set some obligations; one of them is the ability to respond to the needs of our society itself, that is taxes should be reduced but they must be paid too, and the other one is the connection of this reduction with the invested or the re-invested capital which is necessary for the Greek economy.

In addition, we need to know the needs of the Armed Forces; these are not enough to cover the needs of defence industry, so we need extroversion.

We have made an effort to reinforce the extroversion. We start to give certifications which every company can use all over the world to gain new deals.

At the same time, we are trying to turn Greece into a centre of service for the armed forces’ needs of a number of neighbouring countries since we are a pillar of stability and we should remain like this.

We do this in order to move onto a period when what will be characterizing our country will be effort, work and not easy money.

We should do these things together, both the General Staffs and industries. As long as these factors come closer to each other, this will mean planning for the whole country.

We know the way to achieve it.

I am very pleased and certain we are taking a very big step, and I declare the opening of the two-day conference. Its results should be the object of an everyday consideration.”