Attack on the prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis launched the interim president of SYRIZA, Socrates Famouson the occasion of the large fires on multiple fronts.

The statement of the president of SYRIZA in more detail:

“Forestry policy and the importance of forest fire prevention policies was discovered by Mr. Mitsotakis after a nightmarish three days with fires. This is proven by his statements during his visit to the Ministry of Environment and Energy. In other words, he recognized that his government had not given the required special weight in the previous four years neither to prevention policies, nor to climate crisis adaptation policies.

We welcome the “new” ideas of Mr. Mitsotakis and remind him that in 2019 the SYRIZA government handed over to him the National Strategy for Forests, the Public Policy for the Prevention of Forest Fires and the Goldammer Commission Report, all after broad consultation with all stakeholders. We remind him that the SYRIZA government also delivered an approved 550 jobs to the forestry services.

New Democracy chose to freeze all of the above. He also chose to keep the forest services understaffed and with many operational problems. All it did, after the big forest fires in the summer of 2021, was the rough transfer of the forestry services to the Ministry of Environment and Energy which, in the way it was implemented, caused problems in their operation.

We call on him, even now, to take into serious account all the issues that SYRIZA-PS has been raising for four years through the parliamentary control on forest fire prevention issues.

Our country needs long-term and consistent planning to prevent forest fires. In the face of the climate crisis, communication management is not enough. We have to invest in what our environment, society and economy really need.”