By Penelope Galliou

The government is trying to change the page after the “full stop” it put to the internal turmoil caused by the amendment to the residence permit for irregular immigrants who work.

THE practical disagreement of Antonis Samaras which was sealed by voting against the controversial regulation during the roll-call vote carried out on it, “weighed, recorded and we move on”, commented government sources, while measuring the fact that the remaining dissenting MPs limited themselves to expressing objections and respected the party discipline that he placed the Maximos Palace in a central political choice of his, bringing the blue faction out of the brief introversion, unscathed and solid.

At Megaros Maximos they also believe that the content and essence of the controversial regulation for immigrants stems from the reality and the necessity of Greek society and economy for workers, while the benefits of the regulation extend to the public safety of the country as people who until at the moment they lived in “obscurity and darkness” and their activity was unknown, now they are coming to light and being recorded in the country’s workforce with all the positives this entails.

As for the party discipline that was imposed, government officials emphasized that it was not some kind of threat to the MPs who expressed concerns and objections but the standing condition that applies to all government legislation unless it is decided for very specific reasons an exception from she. “The amendment defends the national interest. Because it tries to put order in two things. First, in black and uninsured work. Apart from everything else. Anyone who cares about public order and security prefers to reduce the “unlawful” and increase the obvious” commented Labor Minister Adonis Georgiadis, arguing in favor of the amendment.

The objections were tried to be entertained for the umpteenth time and the Minister of Immigration Policy, Dimitris Kairidis, hastened the amendment, calling on the dissenters inside and outside the ND to be realistic, assuring that the government bases its policy “on real facts and not on ideologies and exaggerations”. .

The disagreements, however, within the ND and especially that of Antonis Samaras who marked the “no” vote on the amendment, gave food for criticism from the opposition parties, including SYRIZA, PASOK, KKE, New Left and Freedom of Navigation voted in favour.

In fact, in the criticism of the intra-party disagreements of ND SYRIZA, PASOK and KKE, they also criticized the fact that the government could take even more steps in the direction of regulation considering that the current one is incomplete.

“Coming into conflict with your own divisive sermons, you are now coming to resolve the issue not completely. We consider it incomplete but in any case it takes a small step” commented the President of the KO of SYRIZA, Sokratis Famelos. And the parliamentary representative of PASOK, Dimitris Manzos, in the same mood, remarked that it is an amendment which, precisely because it comes with this long delay, essentially constitutes a confession of the failure of the ND’s immigration policy.

In any case, the regulation, which is now a law of the state, for immigrants who have proven to have lived in Greece for three years is a one-off and can be revoked if the job they hold is lost or terminated.