The actual data are as follows for the implementation of the civil protection program AEGIS, according to its announcement, the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection reports.

In order to restore the truth in relation to the inaccurate things said and written about the course of implementation of the civil protection program AEGIS, the facts are as follows:

The total budget of AEGIS amounts to 2.1 billion euros and the sources of funding of the program are 3:

  • Recovery Fund
  • European Investment Bank
  • ESPA.

To date, projects worth 1,693,467,703 euros have been auctioned, i.e. 82% of the total budget of AEGIS. The remaining 18% will be auctioned by the end of the year.

  • 23% of the auctioned projects, amounting to 480,013,664 euros, have already been contracted and are now at the stage of payments. Indicatively, it is stated that next month the advance payment for the purchase of 7 Canadairs, amounting to approximately 100 million euros, will be paid.
  • The projects that are ready to be contracted amount to 95,042,065 euros or 5% of the total budget of AEGIS.

In conclusion, the Ministry of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection reports that it made great efforts to overcome a series of mainly bureaucratic obstacles that always accompany such a “heavy” complex project and succeeded in completing an overwhelming percentage of the tenders within 1 year. AEGIS projects are moving rapidly to the next stages and from 2025 Greece will gradually start receiving the equipment for the prevention and response to natural disasters. The full, detailed public presentation and update on the course of AEGIS took place – as we owed it to the Greek citizens – on April 24, 2024 and all procurement and project data are available here.

So, he concludes, even the simple excuse “we had no information” is not valid to explain the deliberate and complete distortion of the truth by the President and the SYRIZA executives. Just as they did not see the 20 aerials, so they did not see the 1.7 billion euros of the auctions.