The Alternate Minister of National Defence Dimitris Vitsas accompanied by the Chief of HAGS Lieutenant General Alkiviadis Stefanis and the Special Secretary of the Ministry of National Defence Kalliopi Papaleonidas inaugurated the Nursery School in Trikala on Thursday, 19 October, 2017. He addressed the cadets of the Non-Commissioned Officers School. He also attended the friendly football match between the National Armed Forces and Security Services Team and Trikala Sport Club which was held to support the Social Grocery of the Municipality of Trikala.

The Alternate Minister of National Defence in his address during the inauguration of the Nursery School, referred to the efforts made to improve the provided services and to support the families of the personnel of the Armed Forces.

Afterwards, he spoke to the cadets of the Non-Commissioned Officers School and he underlined that the leadership of the Ministry of National Defence pays great attention to the improvement of the training provided to the personnel of the Armed Forces and stressed that it is a continuous procedure during their service in the Army.

Referring to the general situation, he stated, among other things:

Our country has been going through a serious financial crisis over the past eight years, which was caused by two things: one of them is the global financial situation and the other one is the financial model we had created here, in Greece, which made this crisis even bigger.

We had two choices before us: one of them was to continue the same way and head towards a disaster and the second one to make a big effort all together and reform the model we had. We are here now on the verge of a change, the exit from the crisis.

We are called on to reconstruct and act with confidence. The main issue is the need of stability on which we can construct. 2017 is the first year in which financial rates will indicate growth. The next issue is what we will do with this growth and how fair we will share it.

Particularly, regarding the Armed Forces he stated:

Officers and NCOs have lost 33-50% of their income over the last years and this has to change. In 2009, the budget of the Ministry of National Defence amounted to 6 billion euro of which 2 billion were allocated to armament programmes, approximately 1 billion to operating costs and 3 billion to salaries. In 2017, the budget amounts to 3 billion of which 500 million is for the armament programmes, 500 million for the operating costs and 2 billion – this is applied since 2015 – for salaries.

This means that we need to develop a new structure for the Armed Forces which will be modern, stronger and more flexible, so we are not only interested in the armaments, but we are mostly interested in education and training.

We want peace, but, at the same time, we must be prepared, under terms and conditions which we definitely wouldn’t like to occur, but we must be prepared if they occur.

We want to overcome the crisis and we are overcoming it. It is important how we will manage this. It is important how the Armed Forces will contribute to the security in the country which can help overcome this crisis. This is related to two things: one of them is our borders and the other one is our international alliances.

We are proud because we realize what we want to do. We are proud because we give our forces for what we do. We are proud because we want peace and because we defend our sovereignty rights which we gained not because someone signed a treaty, but because it was the combat – and this differentiates Greece in respect to other countries – that preceded, it was blood that preceded, it was a huge effort of thousands of people that preceded and then came the treaty as a conclusion and we shouldn’t forget this.