Speech by the Outgoing Minister of National Defence Mr. F. Fragkos during the Ministry’s of National Defence handover ceremony:

“Mister Minister,

Panos Panagiotopoulos

mister Deputy Ministers,

General Panayiotis Karampelas,

Honorary Chief of the Hellenic Navy General Staff, Admiral Dimitris Elefsiniotis.

It is a great pleasure for the caretaker Minister of National Defence to have the honour to address the new leadership, the new political leadership of the Ministry of National Defence.

I feel the need to refer to the personality of the Minister and of both the Deputy Ministers and to accentuate that excellent and skilled men on all counts have come to lead the Armed Forces.

Mister Minister, with degrees in Law and Civil Engineering, is being elected since 2000. Minister of Employment, active member in the Revision of the Hellenic Constitution and intensely active, assumes today the leadership of the Ministry as Minister of National Defence.

The Deputy Ministers, recognised colleagues who have made their course and career in the Armed Forces and are fulfilled, will help the Minister in his task.

After 35 days, during which the caretaker government had to fulfil the task of smoothly carrying out the elections, today, as I had wished, a government was formed directly and I hand over to the elected Minister.

As I had underlined when I had assumed my duties, no thoughts are made by anyone of us, military or not, for any possible compromise in matters of national sovereignty, nor any slippage to matters pertaining to geopolitics and geostrategy, notwithstanding the difficult financial circumstances.  

Last night I had the chance to make a two-hour briefing to the Minister; be sure that with great interest, with immense attention I would say, he followed the issues that concern the Armed Forces’ personnel; what I said to him was that the on my desk, the first issue that would be presented would be the one allowing the continuation of a dignified living for the personnel in the Armed Forces, as well as for their families.

Because they have experienced very severe salary reductions, which vary from 21% to 35%. I will hand over to him this dossier, the payroll suggested by the Services in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Order, having also consulted with the Hellenic Police.

As far as the lingering matters I would like to refer to are concerned, we are not daydreaming. However, we have a vision that we must carry on having strong Armed Forces and, in order to accomplish that, during the current period, we do not need new weapon systems. Yet, we require from the State that we will be assigned the means and the ways in order to have ammunition, spare parts and fuel available; and the fact that the cuts in the operational budget do not allow us to operate over a certain period of time. I need only say that for fuel, the amount should sum up to 100 million Euros.

All these have been put forward to mister Minister who will put all of his effort into helping, I am sure of that, so that we will have excellent spirit and high morale which no one should confuse with the issue of a dignified living.

With these words, I welcome the new political leadership. From the bottom of my heart, I wish success to their mission. I am certain of the outcome, and of the fact that the personnel of the Armed Forces, our personnel, who are proud, who are excellent professionals and who, above all, have Greece in their hearts, will perform their duty to the utmost, wherever and whenever needed, as they do on everyday basis, by land, sea or air.

The neo-Ottoman trends of some among our neighbours do not apply in this country.

Thank you very much”.