Today, Saturday 24 December 2106, the Alternate Minister of Defence Dimitris Vitsas accompanied by the NRDC-GR Commander Lt General Alkiviadis Stefanis, the Commander of 34th Mechanised Brigade Dimitrios Koukos and Member of Parliament Giorgos Dzimanis, visited the headquarters of the Hellenic Force in Kosovo, Pristina, to exchange season’s greetings with the Unit personnel. The Alternate Minister during his visit held meetings with the KFOR Commander and the Ambassador Konstantina Athanasiadou, Head of the Pristina Liaison Office.
The Alternate Minister addressing the Hellenic Force in Kosovo stated the following:
“I wish you Merry Christmas! These days I know that it is very difficult to be away from home. You must know that you are doing a great job, of utter importance. Your presence here is not a typical one, it is very substantial for Greece. Your presence helps accomplish our obligations, towards our allies and the United Nations, maintain peace and stability efforts in the region at a certain level and at the same time form, in one way or another, new ties in the Balkans, something much needed these days by our country and the world generally.
Your contribution here, as well as the knowledge you gain, will be very useful once you return home. Your training and the fact that you are collaborating with colleagues from European countries, does not only provide us with information on what we should be doing, but it also transforms our relations, since the reputation of the Greek Unit is great and renders us Ambassadors not only in our region but with all those collaborators of ours. You have access to another level of information and level of knowledge, which renders you more capable day by day.
In the Ministry of National, this year under better conditions, in the sense that we will do better financially as a country, we will make the effort to produce more with less. This practically means that we need to cater for our personnel at three levels:
The first is the level of knowledge, meaning the amount of knowledge that needs to be gained by the Armed Forces personnel.
The second is education, meaning the level of training we can achieve, with a view to have a force multiplier.
The third is the issue of welfare. To be honest and clear-cut, since our fiscal status does not allow us to make up for what was reduced in the past, we are solving two issues :
The first is that there will be no further cuts. This has been declared by the Minister of Defence himself and by me in all manners. So, away with this issue. The second is to make some progress, meaning that since we cannot give any money, we should provide services and conveniences which will make up for what we cannot provide, until the day comes when we compensate all the great losses. The cuts in the Armed Forces personnel over the last 5 years were about 50%, while in the wages budget more that 35-40%. We want to change that.
2017 will be the year for the Armed Forces reconstruction. Some may take this the wrong way, they believe that will deactivate some Camps and move around some forces. That’s not it. The Armed Forces reconstruction has an objective which is to have the ability to even better, even more efficiently, be able to execute their constitutional duty, the one of deterrence, in relation to the specific and established threat we are all aware of.
This means Units with personnel of high levels of knowledge. If this undertaking reaches the levels of an integrated pla, then we will have achieved the reconstruction.
The aim of my visit is to wish to a Merry Christmas, may the new year be creative.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”
