ATHENS – The publication of alleged information on the spending of the foreign ministry’s secret funds does direct damage to the country’s interests, the prime minister’s press office said in an announcement on Thursday, commenting on a report in ‘iefimerida’.

It said this was the result of main opposition New Democracy and its leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis “raising the issue of the secret funds, even through leaks to the press.”

The government has nothing to hide, the announcement added, while calling on Mitsotakis to seek a meeting with the prime minister if he wanted to be briefed on the secret funds and “stop undermining the foreign policy of the country.”

“Whatever provocation they manufacture, they can be certain that the government will insist on the procedures of transparency and control that it has instituted,” the announcement said.

Also commenting on the leak to the press, Pariament President Nikos Voutsis said this “raises serious questions concerning the aims and goals” of those reproducing the reports.

“For the first time a democratic process for the control of the secret funds in Parliament is being implemented, unlike in the past…this process cannot and must not stop despite the clear annoyance of those that possibly wish to return to the decades of full concealment, wasteful and untransparent spending,” Voutsis said.