The President of the Hellenic Republic Mr. Karolos Papoulias received today at the Presidential Palace the Minister of National Defence Mr. Panos Panagiotopoulos.

Exiting the Presidential Palace, Mr. Panagiotopoulos made the following statement:

“I met today with the President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr. Papoulias, in order to inform him on all matters of my pertinence, as Minister of National Defence.  

As you know, the President of the Hellenic Republic is the nominal Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and therefore has an institutional and, above all, personal interest on such issues, since in the past he held offices in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the Ministry of National Defence.  

Our discussion covered all issues. Among others, we discussed current issues as well as the possibility of new cuts for the payroll of the men and women serving in the Armed Forces.  

What I said to the President of the Hellenic Republic is that the Prime Minister, me as Minister of National Defence and the entire Government, give an everyday fight in order to avoid at any cost the new cuts of 10% to 12% for the payroll of the personnel serving in the Armed Forces.  

We believe that these people cannot go through a new painful sacrifice. Already the cuts that have been made to the Armed Forces’ payrolls are at an average of 37%.  

There are families that experience a very difficult everyday life and this is something we must comprehend. We must comprehend that the Armed Forces are a part of the Hellenic people. We must comprehend that they ensure, disengaging their daily personal problems, the protection of the country’s national sovereignty and national independence, which are valuable so that we can proceed to facing the issues in our economy, peaceful and focused.  

Therefore, given the fact that the country’s national security is of great importance for us, the above mentioned are issues that we must take care of. I informed the President of the Republic that we have made great efforts and we have located equivalences.  

We cut expenses without damaging the effectiveness, or the operational readiness. We place above all the Armed Forces’ effectiveness and operational readiness. We cut expenditures we are in position of doing, we have found equivalences and we believe that no further cuts will be necessary.  

JOURNALIST: Would you say that, in a way, you have asked for the help of the President of the Hellenic Republic? 

P. PANAGIOTOPOULOS: The help of the President of the Hellenic Republic is considered given. We had our first discussions last week at the graduation ceremony of new Ensigns at the Hellenic Naval Academy and there we agreed that I would be made the honour of being invited here today, for a more detailed briefing.  

JOURNALIST: What do you mean by referring to equivalent measures?  

P. PANAGIOTOPOULOS: Equivalent measures; I will be going now to the Ministry of Finance. We, at the Ministry of National Defence, within two weeks, we have managed to elaborate a list of equivalent measures, so as to avoid further cuts by 10% to 12%.  

The Prime Minister before everyone else and then I, as Minister of Defence, have made clear to all that it is impossible to make further cuts.  

JOURNALIST: However, isn’t everything conditioned by the Troika? I mean, the last time, they hardly accepted the solution of equivalence, I would rather say that they didn’t accept any during the last negotiations.  

P. PANAGIOTOPOULOS: I believe that the Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, the Minister of Finance Mr. Stournaras, Mr. Christos Staikouras, the entire staff of the government already handle these issues, within a very difficult framework, during a difficult period, in the best possible way.  

JOURNALIST: You hope, I mean you seem optimistic. 

P. PANAGIOTOPOULOS: In this battle, in this daily struggle, we want to contribute as political leadership of the Ministry of National Defence, offering exactly this work which, I can assure you, was not easy at all. It was very hard and painful.  

Above all, by keeping the effectiveness and the high operational readiness of the country’s Armed Forces that, I believe, deserve a public praise.  

Thank you very much.