The Parliament plenary session passed – by majority vote – the bill from the Health Ministry for the protection of minors from tobacco products and alcohol. During his closing speech, Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis returned to the OPEKEPE issue to criticize the stance of SYRIZA and PASOK.
Adonis Georgiadis on OPEKEPE: Criticizes SYRIZA and PASOK stance
“For SYRIZA to talk about potential criminal liability of Makis Voridis for the organization is the most irrational thing you can hear,” said Mr. Georgiadis. “For SYRIZA to come and say that Voridis should go to prison because he agreed with the administrative council’s decision of OPEKEPE for the so-called ‘technical solution,’ which is based on the ministerial decision of SYRIZA’s minister… Come on, Christ and Virgin Mary. I’ve heard many irrational things in my life…” Regarding SYRIZA MPs’ reference to the European prosecutor’s investigation, Mr. Georgiadis said the prosecutor can say whatever he wants. The issue is what you say. […] It’s absolutely obvious that you’re not interested in substance. You’re interested in creating political noise.
Regarding his previous confrontation with PASOK president N. Androulakis, he noted that what he said was not meant as offsetting. “I didn’t say I feel proud to compare our government with PASOK’s bad period. Nor did I say if we received fewer fines than you… It bothers me a lot that we’ve received these fines. It bothers me a lot that we haven’t managed to solve OPEKEPE’s Gordian knot. What I said wasn’t to make offsets. It was to highlight your political hypocrisy,” noted Mr. Georgiadis.
He emphasized that the Prime Minister has courageously assumed public political responsibility, and in the 2027 elections we will be judged by the Greek people for this: “I personally have full confidence in Kyriakos Mitsotakis. And just as we closed a series of very difficult issues during these six years we’ve been governing, in the remaining two years, we will solve the OPEKEPE issue and agricultural subsidies. It’s not so easy, because it’s an old sin, many people are involved, but he has set this as a goal, and he will succeed.”
Georgiadis to Androulakis: “I grew up in the ’80s, when ‘green guards’ were the most prosperous type in cafes”
Regarding what is written about MPs, and that Mr. Androulakis “can’t stand” hearing about favoritism, he said: “I grew up in the ’80s, when ‘green guards’ were the most prosperous type in cafes… and I consider it great hypocrisy to say, ‘how is it possible’ for MPs to have made phone calls to help one of their voters… “There is no criminal charge for any MP. This is gossip. If I open your phone, Mr. Christidis, haven’t you spoken with any of your voters to solve some issue for them?” he said addressing the PASOK MP and added: “Leave the hypocrisy. The criminal gang is different, those who set up the subsidies. There are no MPs among them. No MP has any prosecution from any prosecutor’s office. There was a network that existed, indeed, and this is being investigated.”
Furthermore, responding to a request from the president of Plefsi Eleftherias, Z. Konstantopoulou to do “whatever is in his power” for little Katerina, who is awaiting a compatible bone marrow donor, Mr. Georgiadis said that the child’s mother has warmly thanked him for his interventions so far. However, her request for covering the costs of each compatibility test separately is unimaginably high. As he explained, samples are collected by thousands and all go together for testing, which costs 600 euros. If each sample went for testing separately, then the costs would be enormous, said Mr. Georgiadis, who wished the child well. “She is preparing for transplantation. She has some good chances of making it. The State has spent a huge amount so she can be where she is. We haven’t left the child uncared for and alone at all,” said Mr. Georgiadis.
Amendment for Semi-Autonomous Living Units passed
It should be noted that with the bill, the amendment from the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family for Semi-Autonomous Living Units was also passed. Presenting the amendment earlier, the competent minister, Domna Michailidou, had said that Semi-Autonomous Living Units were established with law 4837/2021: “It’s the possibility we give to older children, who today are hosted with prosecutorial removal order from their biological family in child protection units, aged over fifteen years, to be deinstitutionalized,” said Ms. Michailidou and continued: “One in four children who are in child protection units today are over fifteen years old and we don’t want them to spend the rest of their minor life in pharaonic-type institutions. We created, therefore, for this reason Semi-Autonomous Living Units, where two to four children over fifteen live in apartments within urban fabric, so that together with social workers, together with caregivers they can have a much more typical and non-institutionalized development.”
This, she added, was done for two reasons. One is that we don’t have connections for these ages. According to the best interest of children, which is reflected in reports from social workers and psychologists within child protection units, these children often are better off not being connected with some family over fifteen years old, and also what we see is that we don’t have many applications from our fellow citizens for children over fifteen, so they can be deinstitutionalized and go to these families.
The second reason is that it’s much healthier according to child protection specialists for children to stay in such small structures and not -I repeat- in pharaonic structures, which have been built to serve needs of other eras, needs of orphaned children and not children who are mainly neglected or abused.
So she concluded, with this amendment we ask organizations, which are supervised by the Ministry of Migration Policy and Asylum and have years of experience in hosting minors to be able to implement Semi-Autonomous Living Units regarding only children who are in the Ministry of Social Cohesion registry.
