The presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Greek Parliament on Thursday, April 7, has prompted reactions from the minority opposition parties, with the Communist party (KKE) deciding to abstain from the speech while the Hellenic Solution party requested the deputies be allowed to ask questions to the Ukrainian President.
On the other hand, the parliamentary groups of the ruling New Democracy (ND), major opposition party SYRIZA, and the Movement for Change (KINAL) agree to hold a special meeting during which Mr. Zelensky will address the national delegation by teleconference for about 10 to 15 minutes, as he has done in the previous period in other parliaments of Europe.
The KKE announced in a statement that it would not attend the meeting, claiming, among other things, that the Ukrainian government had legitimized “Nazi propaganda” and banned the operation of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
The Hellenic Solution Central Committee has asked the Speaker of the Parliament, Costas Tassoulas, to give the opportunity to MPs to ask questions to the Ukrainian Prime Minister, while associates of Kyriakos Velopoulos make the party’s presence at the special meeting conditional on the satisfaction of their demands.
The Hellenic Solution Central Committee has asked the Speaker of the Parliament, Costas Tassoulas, to give the opportunity to ask questions to the Ukrainian Prime Minister, while associates of the leader Kyriakos Velopoulos said their attendance at the special meeting would depend on the satisfaction of their demands.
A similar request has been expressed by the parliamentary representative of MeRA25 Kleon Grigoriadis. At the same time, the party of Yanis Varoufakis said that the special meeting will not be attended by all MPs but by a representative “as a sign of support for a people whose territory is violated by the army of another state.”
It should be noted that a Conference of Speakers of the Parliament will be held today at noon in order to decide the details of the meeting.
According to the KKE deputies, Volodymyr Zelensky is:
– Responsible for the violation of workers’ and people’s rights, for the support and cooperation with the fascist raiding battalions, such as Azov’s battalion, which has been organically integrated into the Ukrainian army, police, and all state structures.
– Responsible for the legitimisation of Nazi propaganda, the rehabilitation of “national heroes” (!) Of Nazi collaborators in World War II.
– Responsible for banning the activities of the Communist Party of Ukraine, persecuting communists and other activists, unnecessarily arresting and imprisoning the Secretary and other members of the Communist Youth of Ukraine whose lives are currently in danger. The Ukrainian Communist Party has appealed to the European Court of Justice against this decision, while a committee of the European Parliament had found a serious violation of human rights by the Ukrainian government in Eastern Ukraine.
– Responsible for banning 11 more opposition parties.
– Responsible for the violation of the rights of minorities living in Ukraine, including the Greeks in Mariupol and the Donbas region.
At the same time, the KKE MPs point out that “currently, one of the vice-presidents of the Greek Parliament, George Lambroulis, a Larissa MP from the KKE, as well as other KKE officials, such as Sotiris Zarianopoulos, a former MEP, and George Maganas, have been dubbed “personae non-gratae” by the Ukrainian government, because they were previously in Ukraine to express their solidarity with the Ukrainian people and the persecuted communists”.
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