“The European elections are not an indifferent process. The forces of responsibility and the forces of populism are clashing in Europe”, noted, among others, the Minister of National Defence, Nikos Dendias, speaking on Saturday night at the anniversary event organized in Patras by the Steering Committee of the Electoral District of Achaia of the ND, on the occasion of the completion of 50 years since the founding of the party. .
“Historically, the ND belongs to the forces of progress and responsibility. We want to convince the Greek society, to succeed and have an amazing result in the European elections”, he underlined. At the same time, the minister also referred to the changes in the Armed Forces
“The European elections are not an indifferent process – ND belongs to the forces of progress and responsibility”
“We are moving forward with a sense of criticality, but also with confidence”, said Nikos Dendias and added: “We have a transparent, a clean European agenda in the ND. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis formulates a clear European speech, with absolute faith in the European institutions, not because we do not know the problems of Europe, but because we believe that we can overcome them together. Because we know that Europe is necessary for our common future and at the same time we know that the spread of populism and incoherence has a cost. So we continue to walk with our principles and values for a better future. Because we are all working to realize a vision of our founder, Konstantinos Karamanlis, a European democratic Greece”.
At the same time, Nikos Dendias noted that “it is our obligation and duty to carry out this effort as well for all of us who belong to the ND” and continued: “It is our obligation towards the history of our faction, towards our families and our children, it is an obligation us towards the coming generations of Greeks and above all it is an obligation towards the homeland and its future. Let’s go for a big victory to serve our faction.”
At another point in his speech, the Minister of National Defense emphasized that “Greece can claim to be a pillar of stability in our wider region, we proved it recently” and added: “Who would have thought that Greece would take over the command of Operation Shields ‘ of the largest military operation ever undertaken by the European Union, the European family. But the world around us is changing fast and not for the better. It does not change to the reality of peace, tranquility of peace. We are therefore obliged to survive, to implement a new strategy for our national security. We have called it ‘Reform 2030’. A deep reform, the biggest reform in the Greek armed forces since the establishment of the new Greek state. This is exactly what the prime minister said when I introduced her first piece of legislation to the cabinet.”
“New reality in the Armed Forces – The 3 new axes”
Speaking about the armed forces, he noted that “we are creating a new reality by having three different axes”.
“The first is the structure and equipment. We will completely change the structure of the armed forces. We will stop having units at 30% occupancy. We will be driven to new forms of full presence and create an armaments program that builds on the great strides already made, but modernizes our entire arsenal.
Also, we are going to create a new reality in the air in order to have the most powerful air force that exists in the wider region and in the years to come, because we are looking ahead.
“We’re going to three main types, the F-16 Viper, the Rafale, an advanced technology plane with tremendous capabilities, and the F-35. And we’ll be able to do that by retiring historic planes like the F-4 first,” he explained, adding that we’ll also try to sell the F16 Block 30 and the Mirage 2000-5.
We will modernize our fleet, bring innovation to the armed forces, new know-how using the new Greek minds that are as capable as any other. We will stop the logic of buying only weapons from foreign shelves and we will go to our own advanced production of power multipliers”.
Regarding the executive staff, Nikos Dendias said that “in principle, we will completely change the term of office and from the term of chore we will go to the term of opportunity and each of our soldiers will have digital skills, because this is what our times require” and he added:
“We will also take care of our professional staff, the backbone of our country’s armed forces. We will improve their career chart, we will ensure better living conditions, the prime minister gave me 100 million euros for the beginning of the housing program for the armed forces of our country, so that everyone who serves within a visible time from today can he has a free grant of residence in the place where his country sent him to serve”.
We must move into a new era in the Armed Forces. We have to modernize everything.
It is challenging for us to homogenize our aircraft types. We’re going to three main types, the F-16 Viper, the best F-16 ever flown. in the Rafale, a… pic.twitter.com/06OUvhjo6y
— Nikos Dendias (@NikosDendias) March 31, 2024
For the 50 years of ND
Referring to ND, on the occasion of the completion of 50 years since its foundation, Nikos Dendias underlined that “we are a party that has a vertical relationship with society and its bodies, with all social groups, with all professional groups, but above all , always through time, with the people of daily toil, with workers, with farmers and small and medium-sized professionals”.
Furthermore, he emphasized that “we were, are and will always remain the party that stands by the weak, the vulnerable, the low-paid, the low-retired, the unemployed, because we are deeply aware that we are the people’s party, the truly popular party, this is the genetic material and this is the identity of our faction”.
At the same time, he noted that “we believe in a liberal society, without divisions, without exclusions, but at the same time we advocated and advocate national unity and national harmony, we advocate the power of truth, arguments, moderation”.
“We” he continued, “we are not the party of fanatics, we are not the party of shouting”, adding: “Always know that when you are right you don’t shout it, because the argument is lost in the shouting. We want the argument to be heard, because we know that we are right, we are the party that believes that Greece should join the chorus of advanced Western countries, that is what we seek and that is what we are fighting for.”
After the end of the event, Nikos Dendias opened an exhibition of photos from the 50-year activity of the ND party organization in Achaia.
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