The president of the Parliament K. Tasoulas described the situation created by the floods as extremely difficult for our country speaking in plenary as part of a debate on changes to the Parliament’s Rules of Procedure. “It’s not about a climate crisis and climate change, it’s about a climate collapse with unimaginable consequences that many might have expected several years later, but they came (but) much earlier and with much greater severity,” said Mr. Tasoulas. He also wished, especially for those trapped, that they are well, because as we all understand things are very very very difficult.

Much of the country is being tested while we mourn the victims of the devastating fires and floodsnoted fourth vice-president of the Parliament, Olga Gerovasilis, expressing the support of the body to all citizens who are tested and who experience losses of their own people. As the SYRIZA member of parliament said, the existence of the climate crisis has been known for two decades, today we are experiencing phenomena that we thought were future threats, but the future is here and our country remains unfortified. Mrs. Gerovasili, who emphasized that the current government has managed the country for five consecutive years insufficiently in terms of forecasting, with an absence of planning, prevention and response and with a refuge either in the globality of crises or in climate change, assured that “we are willing to do cross-party discussion as proposed by the ND government [..] but we will not follow the tactics of the National Democratic Party, which threw into the wastebasket all the prepared work that I personally handed over to the political leadership in 2019 as the outgoing Minister of Citizen Protection”.

Words are poor to describe the dystopia we live in, said PASOK’s parliamentary representative P. Christidis.«We are living in tragic times. We don’t have time to mourn people who perish under circumstances that go beyond the mind and logic, the emotions,” said Mr. Christidis, arguing at the same time that the state is collapsing in a deafening way.

Our people have been left at the mercy of the floods, said the Vice-President of the Parliament G. Lambroulis, emphasizing that “toward this situation, the attitude of the government, the regional and municipal authorities, is to attribute the consequences once again to the convenient alibi for the intensity of the phenomenon, in order to cover up the perennial non-existence of modern flood protection projects and other critical infrastructures and networks, the anarchic construction, the failure to take even elementary measures”.

In his intervention, the president of the Hellenic Solution, Mr. Velopoulos, wondered if, in the event in Piraeus, he was a celebrity, a minister, “would they expel this man, who was murdered by the “gentlemen” in the sea?” Yes or No; No”. On the issue of floods, he said that “Karditsa and Magnesia are over. [..] Climate crisis, yes. But will we solve the problem with wind turbines? Where is the infrastructure, where are the anti-flood projects that were never done, like in North Evia? because the prime minister had said that everything had been done. And Northern Evia was flooded again, on fire.” Yesterday, he added, Vasilissis Sofias flooded and carried away a woman, while Mr. Bakoyannis told us that he has done anti-flooding in Athens and shielded her.

The parliamentary representative of the Spartiates party I. Kontis spoke about the “drama that our fellow citizens are living”, noting that “we will understand the results of all this indifference of the Greek state in recent years, from when we see what impact this will have in the food supply of the country, what effect will it have on our primary production in general. We will understand the destruction that has occurred in the vast Thessalian plain and in all the neighboring Prefectures, such as Trikala, Magnesia and we will see that we are ultimately only talking about a climate change”.

On behalf of Niki, the MP Tasos Oikonomopoulos expressed the party’s undivided support for our people who are being tested, at the same time assessing that in Attica and Thessaly “the much-vaunted staff state is again proving to be helpless. Citizens are constantly unprotected and exposed to the elements of nature, which some policies destroy with great consistency.” As he said, the government’s priorities are probably in the wrong direction. We are in God’s providence and once we understand that and pray for it, he will have mercy on us.”

The president of Freedom of Navigation, Zoe Konstantopoulou, referred to the wounds caused by the floods in Thessaly and northern Evia: Northern Evia, my homeland, has been flooded and Mr. Mitsotakis’ insults here in the Parliament are very recent, that he supposedly did anti-flooding works in Northern Evia.

Four of our fellow citizens dead, one crushed by a wall, two elderly people who were not protected, a 49-year-old farmer who went to save his animals and lost his life. This is the Greece you want, Ms Konstantopoulou asked.

From the side of the governing majority, the ND parliamentary representative, Ath. Pleuris, said that at the moment, when we are on the battlefield, the most important thing is to deal with the situation. From there we will see what more can be done [..] what national planning should be from now on. We are a government that accepts climate change as a reality, but never uses it as an alibi.