You feel disgust, but also deep concern for the country, when reading the conversation between Nikos Pappas, the right hand man of Alexis Tsipras for many years and a minister in his government, and a businessman named Sabbi Mionis
The reason for the meeting of these two men concerned the problems Mionis had with the publisher of the newspaper Dimokratia, Giannis Filippakis.
It's worth reading their conversation, if you can stand it. You will be horrified. You will see firsthand the level they operate on. But above all, you will see the mentality, the way of thinking and acting, of certain senior state officials.
Personally, I'm not surprised. I am generally suspicious when I hear and see Orwellian types of yelling and deeds of people supposedly fired up about democracy, for the interests of the homeland, for the people, etc., in contrast, supposedly, … to the rest of us.
But I didn't expect so much immorality and cynicism!
Pappas directly states, during their conversation, that Mr. Dimitris Papagelopoulos, the Deputy Minister of Justice (!) in the Tsipras government, "makes a lot of money."
Nevertheless, Tsipras says that the Maximos Mansion, that is, the official residence of then-Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, had no problem with such actions of members of his government as long as the policies they put forth did not contradict "the shop’s agenda," i.e., the interests of the Maximos Mansion.
Pappas denies the authenticity of the conversation and claims that he will seek justice. Very nice
Greece, from time to time – as is the case at this time – tries to make significant progress as a country.
For example, to the surprise of foreigners, Greece has successfully dealt with the coronavirus crisis thus far.
This success, however, is due to the fact that Kyriakos Mitsotakis is the Prime Minister of the country.
Luck could play a role – but ultimately, the success of a country correlates with the quality of the person in its leadership position.
What if someone else was Prime Minister?
Is the health care system able to deal with such a crisis without strong leadership from above?
Is the state machinery generally able to cope with the modern needs of the country?
The issue of corruption is of great importance to Greece. The successful fight against corruption is, to a large extent, the entrance ticket to the club of the most developed countries.
Greece is never going to reach its full potential, its people are not going to live better, they are not going to get the National Defense they want or need, if they do not fight corruption. This is clear.
Corruption, on the one hand, in its worst and most dangerous form reaches the cabinet, and on the other hand, involves businessmen. Unfortunately, it also touches media people – publishers, TV channel owners, and journalists – with the result that the media is increasingly devalued.