Tsipras το Die Zeit – Mitsotakis government ignored Goldammer fire plan

The president of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, gave an interview about the dangers posed by the climate crisis and the impact it will have on the political debate in Greece and the EU, to the German newspaper Die Zeit, where he again complained that the government of Mr. Mitsotakis kept the Goldamer report in the drawer until the current disaster.

For the catastrophic fires of the last days, Mr. Tsipras blamed the “state authorities”, saying that “they were not well prepared and are on their part responsible for the extent of the catastrophe”.

The president of SYRIZA referred in detail to the report of the independent committee headed by the professor of the University of Freiburg, Johan Goldammer, which proposed “what should change in Greece due to the increased risk of such disasters during the climate crisis.” “However, the current government of Mr. Mitsotakis put the report in a drawer and did nothing for two and a half whole years. Therefore, it is wrong to now hold the fire brigade or the civil protection service responsible for the disaster.”

Asked about action at European level, Mr Tsipras stressed the need to “reorganize” civil protection in Europe. “For example, there must be a strong common European fleet of firefighting aircraft. “We must also create a European Fund that will be used to protect the climate and repair the damage caused by climate change, whether it is a flood in Germany or a fire in Greece.”

The leader of the official opposition pointed out that “there can be no recovery without the protection of the environment”, while he spoke of “a social demand for a policy that must protect the citizens from the climate crisis”. “The green revolution must not be to the detriment of the weak and the underprivileged, as was the case in previous crises. Either in the financial crisis or in the health crisis of the coronavirus, some already very rich people proved to have won”, he underlined.

Asked about the parameter of ecology in the Greek political arena, Mr. Tsipras expressed the view that “the left forces in Greece have incorporated environmental protection into their policies, since the 1980s” and that “the environmental movement participated in the Coalition of the Left and Ecology and it later evolved into the SYRIZA party “.