An Inter-ministerial Meeting attended by the Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos, the Minister of Shipping and Island Policy Thodoris Dritsas, the Alternate Minister of National Defence Dimitris Vitsas, the Alternate Minister of Citizen Protection Nikos Toskas, the Alternate Minister of Health Pavlos Polakis, the General Secretary of the Ministry of National Defence Giannis Tafyllis and the Secretary General of Civil Protection Giannis Kapakis, was held at the Ministry of National Defence.

The topic of the Inter-ministerial meeting was the creation of a national agency for the management of state bodies’ air assets for public utilities, such as aerial firefighting – monitoring of forests, air evacuations – medical evacuations, search and rescue, air support for the implementation of an emergency plan (Xenokratis). A Common Inter-ministerial Decision was signed for the assignment of air evacuation – medical evacuation operations to the Armed Forces and the Security Corps.

After the meeting, the Minister of National Defence Panos Kammenos made the following statement:

“This is a very important day. We signed a Common Ministerial Decision with the Minister of Shipping, the Minister of Citizen Protection and the Minister of Health for the creation – finally – of a national agency for the air assets of all state bodies under the support of the Hellenic Air Force General Staff.

All assets will be united to contribute with new capabilities to air evacuations, forests firefighting and civilian needs by assembling all the military and civil assets of the state.

I believe that the cost will be reduced, the time that the assets need to respond will be reduced and we will have all the necessary capabilities required to respond to the needs of the archipelago, of remote areas, and to make Greek citizens feel safe”.