“ It is a special pleasure for me to be here today, in the beautiful city of Thessaloniki, the capital of Macedonia, at the “DALIPI” Camp, to inaugurate the operation of another modern military residences complex.

This complex consists of eight flats, and aims to meet the housing needs of the Thessaloniki Garrison members and their families.

The military and political leadership are working towards this direction, demonstrating in actions our care for the needs of our personnel, who work on a daily basis, tirelessly, efficiently and effectively to accomplish their mission.

The Armed Forces personnel – allow me to stress this once more – is the most powerful weapon system of the country.

In the context of our anthropocentric policy, we support our personnel, providing to them residences which can meet all the requirements of the modern family.

This building we are inaugurating today, a modern energy construction, completes the creation of an independent complex of 16 flats.

This work we are delivering today, which began two years ago, proves  that we  are as good as our words.

I would like to congratulate all those involved, who managed in less than a year to deliver this complex we are inaugurating today.

It is more than obvious even to our most skeptical critics, that our vision of 2015, namely to solve the housing problem of the Armed Forces members, is being implemented unhindered, despite the dire financial circumstances and the “war” waged trying to save resources.   

Let’s sit back and think  that the money we would have saved by selling the ammunition – which was sabotaged – if this 66 million Euro was in our hands today, we would have been able to construct even more flats in all border regions.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As I mentioned before, caring for our manpower consists the central component of our policy.  

This is proved by the unhindered and smooth implementation of our actions in fields concerning career progress, transfers, housing, and health care of our members’ families, actions which support them and realize our members’ daily struggle.

We can not turn a blind eye to the fact the transfers of our members to the entire Greek territory, their heavy duty and training schedule affect their families as well.

Right now we are implementing actions concerning 392 military residences of the Army – plus another 250 of the Navy and the Air Force – part of which consist these flats – while another effort is underway to complete these actions as soon as  possible, thus raising the  total number of residences to more than 3000 throughout the whole Greek territory.
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We aim by the end of this 4-year term to have covered all the needs of our Armed Forces Officers, NCOs and Professional Soldiers.  

We are quite convinced that our program will continue with success and I would like to reassure you that we are continuing, military  and political leadership together, with even greater determination, the effort we undertook two years ago.

It would be an omission I did not congratulate the Hellenic Army General Staff , the Chief, and the Commanders at all chain of command levels, as well as our members for their day-to-day effort to complete the actions concerning the improvement of their living conditions, and I make a special mention of the men and women our Engineers Corps.  

This dynamic effort is even more projected by the fact that HAGS has declared 2018 as the “Personnel Welfare Year”.

Concluding, I would like to reassure all members of the Thessaloniki Garrison, that the political and military leadership is by your side, and we will remain by your side, intensifying all our efforts for better living conditions at all levels.

Reverend,  

You have mentioned two issues and I would like to provide answers concerning them. The Hellenic Armed Forces fight  for their faith and country . Thus the link between the Armed Forces and the Church is inextricable.  Virgin Mary and our Saint Protectors  are the Chiefs of our Armed Forces, and , rest assured that the religious morale of our Armed Forces is high and can not be bent.   Under no circumstances will we accept the separation of the Orthodox Greek faith and the state and the Armed Force,  and this reassurement comes with the power delivered to us by the Greek people .

Finally, as far as the Macedonia issue is concerned, it has to do with the decision of the political leaders under President Konstantinos Kramanlis. The political leaders’ decision is to avoid the use of the term “Macedonia” and for any other decision the political leaders council should convene under the President of the Hellenic Republic.  

As far as I am concerned, not as the Minister of National defence, but as a party leader, I would like to reassure you that I will never consent to any use of the greek term “Macedonia” for naming Skopje.  

Closing, I would like to wish to you all a Merry Christmas  and a Happy New Year, believing from the depths of my heart that the new year will be even better that the previous ones.  We are emerging from a deep financial crisis thanks to the sacrifices of the Greek people and everybody’s efforts.

In view of Christmas, I would like to call all the political world to leave the Armed Forces out of any confrontations. I am ready to be criticized, I can tolerate being attacked, however no one should dare “attack” our Armed Forces. I bear the political responsibility, not the members of the Armed Forces.

Today, with the beginning of the discussions on the budget, we should look back on the days when the Armed Forces budget was a national issue and we should all support with our ballot the Armed Forces, having the opportunity to confront at political level any other matter of public administration.

Merry Christmas to all, with health, happiness, courage. May the Virgin Mary be by the side of the Armed Forces’ members and the Greek people”.