The Alternate Minister of National Defence Dimitris Vitsas at an interview which he gave on Thursday, August 25, 2016 on ERT Radio to journalist Andreas Papastamatiou stated among other things:

About the 8 Turkish officers who applied for political asylum:

This issue is examined by the Court which will decide on both cases: the application of the officers to be granted political asylum and the application of Turkey for their extradition. As long as these procedures which are definitely subject to international and national law are underway, I believe that no further comments are required.

On issues of international law, as well as on issues of national law and human rights, political pressure cannot be allowed. Besides, at this time, the vulnerable area of the Middle East and the situation in Turkey which none can characterize as normal, would not help anyone who plans political or other pressure.

About the license bid of television stations:

The license bid procedure is executed normally. This will be the first bidding procedure to be ever conducted in Greece, legal licenses will be granted. The rest of the procedure will be continued afterwards, which regards thematic licenses and all the other licenses which may be granted. I hope that in the future the same procedure will be followed for radio station licenses too, because radio broadcasting is also used by private individuals without the necessary payment of their obligations.

The government realizes that confronts political, financial and communication interests. If some people think that they can influence the decision on the television broadcast licenses, which is not political, but it will be formed through a bidding procedure, they will be disappointed.
 
About what Defence Minister Panos Kammenos would say on this issue:

The Minister of National Defence is also the leader of a political party; he is also several years in politics. There are issues about which he is well informed and he can express his opinion. As long as some papers try to influence the decision of the committee which will grant the licenses, the Minister correctly states that this procedure cannot be influenced.

About the salaries of military officers and the subsistence allowance:

We currently discuss about how the special remuneration scales will be affected. As far as how much money the officers earn at present nothing will change over the next period. The same amount of money they will be earning also after the creation of the single remuneration scale.

The borderline service allowance is an allowance granted to officers and NCOs who serve in borderline areas. The procedure of the allowances will be considered along with the general issue of the special remuneration scales. Our opinion is that this allowance, as well as some other special allowances should not be abolished. On the contrary, some other should be abolished. The allowances will either be included in the special remuneration scale or in the main salary or they will be kept as separate allowances.

The allowances policy has been used for many years as bait. Various allowances were offered to civil servants, which were never included in their salaries and as a result, particularly during the financial crisis period, they saw that their real salary is too low.

About the Greek defence industry:

At this moment we have finalised the National Defence Industry Strategy. The General Staffs have set which their needs will be over the next years and under which financial circumstance they must be met. All those who cooperated with the Hellenic Armed Forces have received the message that the cooperation will be connected to the enhancement and the participation of the domestic defence industry to the upgrade of our weapon systems. There is a clear plan which progresses, despite the difficulties, difficulties due to liquidity problems, difficulties of action, difficulties of forming the production lines, yet it progresses and this is very important.

About the refugees-migrants accommodation centres:

41 out of 50 accommodation centres have been constructed by the Armed Forces and some of them are also run by them temporarily. Our next plan, as the competent minister of migration policy stated too, is to reduce the centres, to make them smaller and increase the accommodation in houses and the relocation of refugees and migrants to other countries of the European Union.
Since a “debate” has been launched in the area, I would like to say once more that in Thrace, for special reasons that we all can acknowledge, no accommodation centres are to be constructed. This is over.