The bill of the Ministry of Shipping and Island Policy entitled “Ratification of the May 24, 2024 Agreement Amending the February 2, 2018 “Concession Agreement Regarding the Use and Exploitation of Certain Areas and Assets within the Port of Thessaloniki” was passed by the plenary session of the Parliament. between the Greek State and “Thessalonica Port Authority SA””.

ND was in favor, SYRIZA-PS, PASOK-Movement for Change and Hellenic Solution declared “present”, while KKE, New Left, Niki, Pleussi Eleftherias and “Spartiates” voted against.

Closing the debate, the Minister of Maritime and Island Policy referred to the government’s plans for infrastructure issues, with the first project being the digitization, simplification and restructuring/rebuilding of the ministry and the Coast Guard, “which we got from the EU’s DigiReform” , and will begin on October 10.

The second project is the Master Plan of the Aegean, that is, a “magnetic tomography” of the sea, which has already been launched and there is also a contractor, “where there will be an absolute evaluation of the safety, the optimization of the lines, the port infrastructures” said the minister, adding that “we have already found 300 million for the development of port infrastructure, both from the Recovery Fund and from the NSRF, and I think that, with some pan-European revision of the NSRF, we can find even more”.

Finally, with the third project concerning security, “we are going to an assessment per port, per minute, to put time slots on how the ships will enter and leave, and not have the phenomenon of someone being on the catapult and starting the ship to leave” underlined Mr. Stylianidis: “It is a difficult project because it is also combined with optimization of the barren lines”.

He also noted that we have already started and there is a contractor for the first pilot project, with 80 million PPP for the barren lines, which if we go well will reach 400 million. This means that we can cover by “greening” ships, all approximately the barren lines, said the Minister of Shipping and concluded: “I think we are in a very important process in terms of ports, our shipping and security in general. It doesn’t happen overnight. There are no magic solutions. There are no miracle workers. But I think that things have begun, whether I am here or somebody else, they will move forward, and I am sure that very soon we will reach better and safer harbors.’

During the discussion of the bill, the parliamentary representative of PASOK-Movement of Change, D. Manzos, criticized the government for the costs of renovating the office of the Minister of Tourism, saying that it is a practice of dishonesty and greed, which “takes us back to SW Greece before the bankruptcy”. Referring to a post in defense of Mrs. Kefalogianni by the Minister of Health Ad. Georgiadis, Mr. Manzos said that “clarity and accountability are not “little things”, it’s not “little things” that we don’t care about the carpets of ministerial offices, but the messes of hospitals [..] As long as these behavioral patterns of Marie Antoinette are manifested, at the same time, society is hibernating,” said Mr. Manzos.

The head of the New Left, Al. Charitsis, on the occasion of the latest developments in the region. As he said, “Israel has chosen – after the genocide in Gaza – to generalize and expand the war. This is also shown by yesterday’s and the day before yesterday’s terrorist – because these are terrorist attacks – attacks in Lebanon, this unthinkable attack with the ignition of buzzers and radios, which shows that we have now passed into a completely different phase, into a new phase that reaches the limits of science fiction, in a new phase of dystopia and war horror”.

The government avoids control “like the devil avoids incense”, said the president of Pleysis Eleftheria, Z. Konstantopoulou. The government’s intention, to hold the pre-scheduled debate on the fires, after the end of the fire protection season, instead of the promised September, means a permanent shift to the Greek calendars, said Ms. Konstantopoulou.

The head of Freedom of Navigation also spoke of the government’s “furious movement” in appointing people to various independent authorities. “Yesterday at the Transparency Authority, and today, the same attempt was made for the Ombudsman, which ran into opposition”: “The attempt to replace the Ombudsman is not accidental, as there are open investigations, and the case of the Pylos shipwreck is one of them” said Ms. Konstantopoulou.