With the speech of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis at the plenary session of the Parliament, the three-day debate of the motion of no-confidence submitted by PASOK, SYRIZA, New Left and Plefsi Eleftherias on the tragedy of Tempi is concluded.
Watch his speech
Points of the Prime Minister’s speech:
Mrs Konstantopoulou, you left an unthinkable implication that because he was a volunteer he had informed me about the cargo. You are not ashamed, how you instrumentalise pain in this way and say this without shame.
An expert witness exists. He never confirmed anything you say. Never, ever, was any order given for a cover-up. -He said looking at the relatives of the victims in the gallery.
You said we wanted to cover up the ground? Why would we do that? And that was the government’s decision? What exactly were we covering up with the burying? The concern of the crews was to lift the train cars to see who was underneath.
A human hand sent the train at the wrong time and that’s what happened. Is there a single person who believes that if he had done his job properly, as hundreds of others do, there would not have been an accident?
I left in a helicopter and saw the most horrific thing I have ever seen in my life and you say my concern was to mess with the dialogues. Aren’t you a little embarrassed to say that?
Let’s start with the profoundly misleading article in the VIMA. It says that the dialogues of that evening were altered: were not all the conversations available to the investigating authorities from the outset? Why would anyone want to change them?
You have introduced into your propaganda a vocabulary of other times. Mash-up, cover-up, montage. It’s time to dispel the myths. I will attempt to do so in the memory of the people as soberly as I can. I take responsibility in their memory to tell the truth and be judged.
Political powers have become merchants of pain. To make it appear that the government lacks empathy. Respect the people who are at least in the theatres.
We didn’t talk about the tragedy as much as we should have from the beginning. It is on this information gap that the most unlikely conspiracy scenarios have grown.
I wonder, when on the anniversary, when you dressed Koumoundourou in black, we could have done it in 2019, we didn’t. You said, Mr Fammelle, that I am in hiding, I am here. I was seated in this Chamber, I was absent from only one meeting on principle, the examination of the drinks of the investigating authority.
I am addressing everyone and everyone as Prime Minister and as a father. So far, in the face of this tragedy, we have not been able to stand united. I have apologised on behalf of all those who have ruled for decades that we have failed to change the ills of the railways.
I stand with respect and humility before the memory of the people we lost, the pain of the injured and the relatives and victims. Of all of them, only they have the right to make the pain a protest and even to do injustice to the State.
What the Prime Minister is expected to say
Kyriakos Mitsotakis is reportedly determined to give full answers to all the issues that have been opened against the backdrop of the tragedy of Tempi. Mitsotakis is expected to respond to all the issues that have arisen in the case of Tempi and to what the opposition claims about the cover-up, bazaar, mounting or trafficking of illegal fuel.
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The Prime Minister will attack both PASOK President Nikos Androulakis and SYRIZA leader Stefanos Kasselakis for complicity in toxicity, for underground alliances, tomboyishness and instrumentalization of a tragic event in order to escape from political deadlocks and to cultivate conditions of institutional diversion in view of the European elections.
It is recalled that opening the debate in the Parliament, State Minister Makis Voridis described Mr Androulakis as a “proxy of interests” and attacked SYRIZA for appointing as rapporteur in the debate the 13-0 convicted in the Special Court for television licenses Nikos Pappas.
It should be noted that the procedure will be concluded by a vote. According to the Rules of Procedure and the Constitution, a motion of no-confidence is only accepted if it obtains an absolute majority, i.e. at least 151 “in favour”, otherwise it is rejected and the right to submit a new motion of no-confidence is withdrawn for six months.
