“There is a clear failure of the Government in the civil protection and security policy of the citizens“, said the parliamentary representative of PASOK, Dimitris Manzos, as a guest on the program “Morning News” of SKAI.

He added that “we have been ringing the alarm bell for years. We have a Ministry of Civil Protection and Climate Crisis, which has not yet completed its organizational chart and has not issued all the regulatory acts provided for by its legislative framework.”

After expressing his support to those affected and to those who are trying to limit the dimensions of the tragedy of the fires, Mr. Manzos underlined that “this is not the time for an open political confrontation. AIt’s time for some first critical political findings” and he explained: “We have overlapping responsibilities between central administration and self-administration, the Municipality, the Region and Civil Protection do not know what to do, when to do it and how. We don’t really have functioning and orderly forest services. The protection of the forest had to be done in the field in time, because the forest is saved by the winter, not the summer.”

The PASOK parliamentary representative then stated that “we do not have operational plans in each Region as we should. These are suggestions. Proposals are to follow, not imitating but adapting, European best practices. We may have the most aircraft, but we also have the most acres of burnt land in all of Europe, one million acres in forty days, according to the European Forest Fire Information System!”

Dimitris Manzos pointed out once again the need for “resilience of our infrastructure, priority in prevention and then in suppression and rehabilitation. We have overturned the doctrine here in Greece. We only give 1/5 of the fire budget to prevention and all the rest goes to suppression. This is a dead end option. Especially in light of the climate crisis, special emphasis should be placed on prevention.”

He emphasized, at the same time, that this discussion must be held “calmly, sobriety, right reason, without sterile confrontation, with special self-criticism and courage from everyone to take responsibility. Especially the Governments of recent years. When there is no accountability, space is left for extreme voices. Conspiracy even led to xenophobia, hatred. We saw images from the past that I’m very afraid are still here. The past is becoming the present when it comes to xenophobia and extreme forms of violence and this is something that we have to stop at its root.”

Finally, he quoted what the Government Spokesman, Pavlos Marinakis, said, noting that “he more or less told us that with 41% in the elections, the message should be not to criticize the Government. Only because he himself is Secretary of the ND can this statement be “justified”. But, what we see is that nothing was done in terms of prevention. Parnitha is burning again, like in 2007 and 2021. Proof that there was no necessary prevention.”