At the 9th Delphi Economic Forum, Chios MP and former Minister of Citizen Protection, Mr. Notis Mitarachis, participated in a discussion on the issue of Violence and Social Security.

On the panel, alongside Ms. Olga Gerovasili from SYRIZA and Mr. Kostas Skandalidis from PASOK/KINAL, Mr. Mitarachis  emphasised the importance of security in society, while also addressing the primary role it plays for the government itself, noting that, “an environment in which the citizen is neither threatened nor endangered. An environment in which the citizen respects the institutions and the institutions respect him. An environment in which we have strong social bonds that prevent issues of deviant behaviour and within the framework of modern democracy, there is also the role of the police, and that of the judicial system to implement the law and there is no impunity for perpetrators of violent incidents, nor an environment in which the penal system fails to achieve its initial target which is to rehabilitate those who have been perpetrators of violence and to reintegrate them into civil society.”

“Democracy cannot work in an environment where citizens do not feel safe. In our country, compared to other Western societies, we still have strong social bonds that play a catalytic role. However, when you have matters, for example, in schools, where students do not respect the school environment – environments where parents do not respect the school where their children attend challenging the institutions as parents, we create an environment where children feel that there are no boundaries. And this lack of boundaries can lead to violent incidents, and youth delinquency today is a problem that concerns Greek society,” Mr. Mitarachi emphasised.

In response to a question about the issue of immigration and its connection to security, Mr. Mitarachi, in his capacity as former Minister of Migration and Asylum, emphasised that ;fundamentally, the issue with immigration and security arises when immigration occurs without rules. Immigration is obviously a timeless phenomenon and will always exist. It is important for countries to be able to manage it according to their own needs and within their capacity, through legal procedures. When immigration becomes the subject of exploitation by illegal networks, which bring people, risking their lives, and then integrate them into society in an irregular manner, hidden, this obviously creates issues of criminality. Because now even immigrants are victims of the same networks.’

“What we managed to achieve from 2019 to 2023, is for our country to drastically reduce flows and substantially reduce the impact of the crisis on local communities. Immigration, which in previous years was a major topic of discussion in many societies, is no longer a first priority,” Mr. Mitarachi concluded.

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The deputy minister took the floor to respond to objections from other parties, stating that Greece has the strictest framework regarding postal voting compared to other countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and Germany.

Consequently, he noted that the success of postal voting is evidenced by the fact that 74,000 people have already registered to cast their vote in the European elections.

Mr. Mitarachis also emphasised an important aspect of the discussion, highlighting the fact that everyone agrees on how crucial safety is in schools. “We all agree on how critical it is to prevent crimes and to support the new generation, to have school’s that respect its students, with teachers who are evaluated and willing to contribute to the education of children, in an environment where both students and their parents respect the school,” Mr. Mitarachis stressed.

In conclusion, Mr. Mitarachis mentioned that “the reality is that since 2019, we have experienced unprecedented crises, beginning from the pandemic, and we were able to address them with the best possible result. Obviously, not everything can be solved, and issues will always arise. However, the state mechanism did respond to a very large extent to many difficulties.”