On Friday, the clash of political leaders over surveillance

Of Dimitris Gatsiu

The die for the first big bra de fer of the new political year has been cast.

Next Friday and in the Plenary Session of the Parliament, the Prime Minister and the leaders of the opposition parties will cross their… political swords on the case of surveillance, in a counter-dress rehearsal for the… hot, as expected, at all levels pre-election period.

According to the decisions of yesterday’s Conference of the Presidents of the Parliament, tomorrow’s meeting of the Committee on Institutions and Transparency will have preceded the appointment of the new governor of the EYP, Themistocles Demiris, while next Monday the debate on the recommendation will be held in the Plenary Commission of Inquiry on the matter of the monitoring of the mobile phone of the president of PASOK, Nikos Androulakis.

In the government, they are preparing the…papers they will throw in the pending parliamentary confrontations, while “everything in the light”, as executives comment, is constantly at the forefront of public positions.

In parallel time and in the logic that “the best defense is attack”, the government staff is structuring strategies and objectives before the mother of battles in the Plenary, with factors keeping the prime minister’s immediate reaction in the foreground, from the moment it began to unravel the puzzle of the Androulakis surveillance revelations.

Mr. Mitsotakis, who has already made the government’s self-criticism, is expected to focus exactly on this part of the immediate reaction, as well as the immediate decisions, in order to answer the arguments that the opposition has developed and will continue to develop.

As executives observe, in the wake of the Conference of Speakers of the House, which determined the framework for the next few days, the government has said from the first moment that it is in favor of investigating the case, for this reason it has stood positively in all the parliamentary procedures that will …raise the curtain from tomorrow.

At the same time, on the Commission of Inquiry front, the government says “yes” to the investigation of the present, but, what is noted is that the past should also be examined, in order to:

– To point out chronic pathologies.

– To formulate improvement proposals for the future, so that these services can play, as stated, their important role in the protection of national security, while strictly observing the rules of the rule of law.

“The government’s position is clear. As Mr. Mitsotakis has emphasized, it is in favor of investigating what concerns the connection of the phone of the president of PASOK, in the context provided by the law and the regulation of the Parliament.

Also, he is in favor of investigating the operation of malicious software in Greece, in the context of ensuring the privacy of communications, although, as has been repeatedly emphasized, state services have nothing to do with them”, commented executives.

“So, we say yes to the investigation of the present, but that the past should also be examined in order to correct pathologies so that similar problems are not observed in the future… The Commission of Inquiry should not be a field of sterile political confrontation but should produce a substantial result for the country”. they add.

“The goal is to have as much consensus as possible so that the committee can investigate incidents that may have occurred over a long period of time.

So that he can draw cool useful conclusions”, said the secretary of the New Democracy Parliamentary Group, Yannis Bougas.