The President of the Republic Konstantinos A. Tasoulas visited the Ministry of National Defense, where the Minister welcomed him Nikolaos Dendias, The Deputy Minister Athanasios Davakis as well as the military leadership of the Armed Forces, led by Chief of General Staff General Dimitrios Houpi.
After his address by K. Dendia, the President of the Republic made the following statement:
“I am here today, Mr Minister, Mr Deputy Minister, Mr Chief of the General Staff of the National Defense, Chief Chiefs of the Three Weapons, Ladies and Gentlemen, keeping the task of the President of the Republic with the Armed Forces. And as we know, the relations of the President of the Republic with the Armed Forces are constitutionally unmistakable, they are very close. But I am here for another task that has, allow me, and a personal character, not just a state. I am here to maintain a duty and a desire, knowing the armed forces from my many years of involvement in the public, to sincerely formulate the deep appreciation and the full confidence with which the state, and I personally, surround the armed forces.
You have in your hands the most valuable our people. You have your security and freedom in your hands. And you have succeeded in feeling the Greek people that their security and freedom are in good hands. Definition of territorial integrity and national sovereignty, with what these important concepts entail, is the highest mission to the state, in the state. And it is certain that you do this mission in full. The Greek people, thus feeling, can be reckoned by the concern for their security and freedom, to engage in their peaceful pursuits and peaceful ambitions, that is, to create the myth of his life, free from the anxiety of threat, free from any stress.
But things, Mr. Minister, as you said, lead us to the conclusion, seeing changes in world security architecture as we knew it after 1945, lead us to conclude that my times are galloping. And next to the preparation, next to the alert, next to the wisdom, a new virtue is built next to the deterrent. The virtue of rapid adaptability. To come together – let alone the armed forces – with the galloping times. And let’s hope, Mr. Minister, that later the historian will not describe the galloping times, who challenge and shift defense cooperation data, they will not call them times.
Europe is quickly adapted, for its own habits, to these new rhythms. Europe now has a White Paper for Defense and is even entitled “Ready 2030”. It fits very well with what the ministry has announced for months for the “agenda 2030”. It has billions of resources for its defense and the formation of a strategic autonomy. And Greece as a Member State of this Europe is involved in these changes in attitude, in this European awakening in relation to its defense.
But Greece, ladies and gentlemen, does not have the luxury of being awakened now, in relation to its defense. Greece has been alert for its defense for decades. The challenges and the key threat you have said have imposed such behavior. And this behavior, in recent decades, shortly after the Transition, this behavior, has secured all this sense of the Greek people towards the Armed Forces, this positive sense.
Mr Minister, a few months ago in the Greek Parliament, the armed forces were announced to the galloping of the times. I could summarize this adaptation with the expression we have the 21st century armed forces. We have armed forces that adapt to the new reality of all three weapons. And we also have armed forces that take care of the homeland, but that they themselves and through the state take care of them. The state cannot be a fool for those who defend our borders.
Soon, we will have the opportunity to contact surveillance guards, with units carrying out missions from the European Union, with advanced Air Force Squadron. The state has to exercise any margin of affection for those who care for its integrity.
The room in which this information is made, Mr Minister, has a history of history. It is called “Ioannis Kapodistrias” room. It is the hall that honors the name of the first governor of the country, a ruler who ruled and martyred, murdered. This commander took care of the Armed Forces. He was inspired to build in Nafplio, the Evelpidon School. “I think” I think it was checked, in the then Government Gazette, namely Evelpidon, in 1828 began.
And since we are in the charming grab of history, let me take steps back, to retreat several centuries back and go to the most exquisite political discourse ever spoken, in the Epitaph of Pericles, in the first year of the Peloponnesian War, in honor of the first fallen. Pericles describes many qualifications of the city and when we say city we mean the state of that time, his homeland. He talks about education, he talks about culture, about trade. But I think in that reason, the greatest praise given by Pericles to the Athenian Republic is the praise of “Axiomachos and the deterrent”. How he says it, “and the city we have prepared at all times and the war and the peace self -sufficient.”
So we’re ready, we’re honorable, we are deterrent, deterrent! We are like the “unmatched” of the immense anthem. And this is the biggest praise for a state.
Mr Minister, Mr Deputy Minister, Chief Heads, today, this praise belongs to you. But praise, he himself, he must force us to feel that at all times in the future, we must claim him, never lose him.