“ONNED is celebrating its 50th anniversary in a justified way” said Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister and government representative Pavlos Marinakis during his speech at the festival for the 50th anniversary of the establishment of ONNED. “The battles fought all these years by ONNEDites are more than won. It is rare, I think, that a youth, a youth organization, has been vindicated so much”, emphasized Mr. Marinakis.

The following is the full text of the speech of the deputy minister to the prime minister and government representative Pavlos Marinakis

“Shortly after ONNED’s thirty years, during the presidency of Giorgos Papanikolaou, I also first joined the DAP and then ONNED, as a student of Law in Komotini.

I celebrated ONNED’s 40 years, as a young lawyer at the time, and I come today together with the Prime Minister, leading Ministers, ONNED women and men from all generations, people we ran together from student years to the executive office of ONNED and the two good friends here (including the current vice-presidents of ONNED who were coordinating) to speak as the former president of this organization that when I signed up I always wanted to sign up to what is the New Republic.

I want to focus on three points, since I congratulate Orfea Georgiou and all of you for the excellent organization and for the perspective you gave to our history throughout this day. The first has to do with something that should make us very proud and very optimistic. We say that no battle is lost and only the one not fought is lost.

And the battles fought all these years by ONNEDites, are more than won. It is rare, I think, for a youth, a youth organization, to have been vindicated so much and I think that not even we ourselves have understood what this vindication consists of. Think how improbable it was considered for Greece until five years ago, I remember that we had students fighting for the existence of non-state universities, during the times of Marietta Giannakos, Euripides Stylianides, during the Prime Ministership of Kostas Karamanlis, but we knew that probably we will remain the exception along with Cuba. We were justified. Think about how difficult it was to talk about abolishing asylum and for it to be a daily occurrence, as has been the case in recent years, an intervention by the Police in universities, as is the case in hospitals, as is the case wherever the law is broken.

Think how extreme we were once considered, and our predecessors much more so, when we talked about PPPs, when we talked about graduate degrees in public universities with partnerships with companies, when we talked about issues that were then taboo. Think how many years, 10-20 years ago, how small a part of society, did not consider it self-evident that the law should be enforced when something happens, did not consider it self-evident that in order to have economic development, the public and private sectors must cooperate. All this was not said by any forum, all this was not said by any reflection institution, all this was said by ONNED.

So ONNED is celebrating its 50th anniversary with vindication. And that is the most important thing. In our years, not only when I was President but also in the first executive that I participated with Sakis Ioannidis and as Vice President of Kostas Dervos, we began to understand the difference between then and the past.

We didn’t have all the data. ONNED’s 40th anniversary was celebrated in a Greece that was on its way out of the crisis. The famous negotiation took place and the main discussion then was where we will find work and whether our friends will stay in Greece.

We are celebrating 50 years – and this is the second thing I will say – with the lowest unemployment of the last 15 years – because we are our ideas but we are also our policies – and with 500,000 new jobs within five years. Point two, the Prime Minister also said it.

There is a debate from time to time about the necessity of youth politicians. No one is infallible. No one has done everything perfectly.

No party. No youth. But this debate is answered with only one argument.

It’s a lot, but I don’t think anything can beat it. And I will speak for myself, seeing as many such examples in the room and thinking of many more.

I was born and raised in Patras, I studied at the Law School of Thrace. I cannot say that I come from a political family.

I went to a public school and a public university. And I have the honor of working with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Prime Minister of the country, because quite simply with a group of people at the school we tried to change some things. With another group of people here in Athens we have tried to improve many of the things that concerned us, since we came, until today. Because I was given the opportunity, I was given the step.

And it’s not just me. There are too many of us. Some of them became top government officials, I see here Kostis Hatzidakis, Evripides Stylianides, Yiannis Oikonomou, but they are not only government officials, the parliamentarians, they are people of self-government such as Giorgos (s.s. Papanikolaou), they are also people who, as the Prime Minister said, chose not to continue in politics, but met people, managed to succeed in their work.

Whoever, therefore, does not want ONNED, because the rest of the youth unfortunately have a tradition of party officials, is in fact depriving people of opportunities.

We are very, very proud that a child from Patras, from Larissa, from Heraklion, from all over Greece, from a public school, from a private school, from Athens, from a family that can he has the ability, or not to have the ability, to claim his dreams.

Third and last. We say that ONNED is ahead of its time. This separates her from all the rest. This is what you are called to do.

Once upon a time, some people before us said things that today are taken for granted. This is what we tried to do.

It may not have been obvious but it was one of the campaigns we did, we started talking about the schools and the abuse that many students are going through and today the Government is implementing, after the failure of many previous governments, a series of policies.

So the only thing you have to do is think about what will be the obvious thing in 10-20 years.

I close with a very big “thank you” to the Prime Minister for the opportunities he has given me, to the people who honored me by being their partner in ONNED and ND and with an answer to the question “why do we do all this”.

I will tell you that today we are celebrating ONNED’s 50th anniversary and tomorrow I have my son’s birthday, which turns one year old. So, I am fighting for my grandfather’s generation, who from Patras, he and some of his friends during the difficult years did not succumb to the populism of the 80s and correspondingly the people of the youth at that time.

For ONNED, we are proud of our friends, fellow students and, respectively, all of you here, all over Greece, that when the University was closed to us, we went to open it and give the opportunity for our fellow students to study, for the partners we met there from politics.

We are fighting for all of them and for our children, for whom we cannot allow them to live in a country with the pathologies that we all suffered, more or less, in previous years, because we had to tolerate an alleged ideological hegemony that no longer there is. We owe these children whether they are one, whether they are in school, or whether it is Konstantina who is one of the youngest members of ONNED. Fill the organization with people of society, with people with feeling, fill the organization with feeling and don’t be afraid to be ahead of your time.”