The Minister of National Defence, Mr. Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos intervened today, Thursday 7 October 2021, in the debate held in the Parliament’s Plenary Session on the “Ratification of the Agreement between the Government of the Hellenic Republic and the Government of the French Republic on the establishment of a Strategic Partnership for Cooperation in Defence and Security”, in order to reply to the position of the Leader of the Opposition on the International Flight Training Center at Kalamata.

The Minister highlighted the following:

“I heard in your position Honorable Leader of the Opposition that you referred to a scandalous overpricing of the Training Center at Kalamata and moreover, you claimed that we had better alternatives; in other words, that we could do this cheaper with our own money and in fact, at a ¼ of the total cost. These claims are untruthful and I would really encourage you to turn to those who advised you to say those things, because they have not done their homework and therefore they did not advise you well.

The only available proposal was by a Canadian company at 1.9 billion euro when we took over the government. In the course, an Israeli company arose. Then there was competition; there were successive cuttings of the proposals and we arrived at the agreed amount.

As soon as the programme got through the Parliament’s relevant Committee – after a five-hour debate and exhaustive explanations given about the pricing – the main negotiation was launched that led to the final price that you claim that it is scandalously overpriced. This price is slightly higher than the original one, because the price indexation clause was included that does not consist of a scandalous intervention out of nowhere, but it is a standard practice for such long-term contracts. It is a known fact that this contract had a duration of 22 years. Besides, this clause would also be negotiated and discussed with the Canadians as well if they would have taken the job.

However, the claim that we also had our own proposal submitted by the Air Force and we did not took advantage of it is absolutely untrue, because at the meeting of the Joint Chiefs of General Staff Council in January 2019, the former Minister of National Defence stated in the minutes – you may well look at the Joint Chiefs of General Staff Council’s minutes, it’s fresh in my mind and I would like to refresh your memory too – that the Canadian proposal should be further examined, as well as that we should possibly seek other solutions.

There have never been other proposals. Despite the fact that we asked for it at the Committee on Armament Programmes and Defence – when we were talking for 5 hours about Kalamata – and nobody submitted the dossier describing how we could do this on our own at ¼ of the cost. Just because there was no dossier at all; just a theoretical debate by members of the Air Force that has never been included in a proposal though. For this reason, we sought solution to a problem that at the end of the year with the expiry of the expected life of training jets would have dramatic consequences for the smooth follow-up of the Aviation Cadets’ training. And the solution came with the Israeli proposal at the price that was negotiated and certainly does not constitute a scandalous overpricing.

I would suggest for those who advise you on such issues to do their homework well, so that no impressions of early scandals would be created in this Room.

I would say that the debate on the Armament Programmes has occupied most of the attention, considering that the debate is about other issues and not about the Armament Programmes.

Concluding, all I have to say is that if you had shown the same zeal for the Armament Programmes when you were in government as you do today, we would not have to run and fill such a large gap.

Thank you”.