The installation of Euripides Stylianidis<\/b> regarding the constitutional revision<\/b>.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one and only term of President of the Republic <\/strong>strengthens his independence and frees him from the human anxiety of re-election, so that he may carry out his duties unimpeded as the arbiter of the political system\u2014albeit with reduced powers\u2014and as head of state,\u201d is the view on which the proposal to amend Article 30 of the Constitution was based, as formulated by the rapporteur of New Democracy<\/b>, Euripides Stylianidis,<\/strong> in the Constitutional Revision Committee.<\/p>\n \u201cUndoubtedly, the discussion about the President of the Republic would be more meaningful if we were talking about a president with enhanced powers. However, even now he retains his symbolic, political, and national significance, if we realize that it is one thing for someone to seek to derive value from his office, and quite another for him, as a personality, add value to that position\u2014and this applies to all roles, whether or not they carry extensive responsibilities, because, as our people wisely say: \u2018It\u2019s not the robes that make the priest,\u2019 noted the New Democracy party\u2019s general rapporteur.<\/p>\n Mr. Stylianidis also referred to the process for electing the President of the Republic<\/b>.<\/p>\n \u201cAs long as the Constitution required the election of the President of the Republic by a supermajority, it compelled political forces to reach a consensus and endowed the institution with prestige. PASOK has consistently opposed this process\u2014which was a long-standing position of New Democracy\u2014since the 2001 Constitutional Revision, in order to avoid triggering snap elections. Instead, it proposed repeated and unlimited votes. \u201cIn the presidential elections of 2010 and 2015, the presidential election process was exploited,\u201d said Mr. Stylianidis, adding:<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2010, G. Papandreou declared that he would not vote for Karolos Papoulias before the elections, attempting to corner the Kostas Karamanlis government at a time when it was trying to take bold measures to stem the impending economic crisis that led us to the memoranda. This led to early elections, which only exacerbated the situation. The same thing happened in 2014 at a critical moment when the Samaras-Venizelos government was poised to bring the country out from under the international oversight of the memoranda. Alexis Tsipras\u2019s refusal to support the election of the President of the Republic led to the 2015 elections and the third memorandum. The opposition\u2019s exploitation of the presidential election led us in 2019 to the position that the inability to elect a president with a reinforced majority of 200 or 180 members of parliament should not forcibly interrupt the continuity of a strong,democratically legitimized government. This position, proposed by PASOK, was also based on the argument that the president\u2019s powers had already been curtailed. Therefore, the possibility of electing the president by an absolute majority made sense in order to support the strongly democratically legitimized government in completing its work. Moreover, the Constitution encouraged\u2014though did not require\u2014political parties to reach consensus in the first three rounds of voting, relying on the maturity and capacity of the political system to forge consensus. This expectation was fulfilled during Sakellaropoulou\u2019s first election, but was derailed during the election of the current president, K. Tasoulas, because institutional logic was subordinated to the opposition\u2019s petty partisan expediency.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, every party has had and continues to have the right to hold the position it advocates. However, this in no way diminishes the institutional prestige or the influence wielded by the incumbent president. After all, let us not forget that even Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis, although elected by an absolute majority, is identified with the most significant positive moments for our democracy as well as for Greece\u2019s European perspective,\u201d said Euripides Stylianidis.<\/p>\n Regarding the revision of Article 41 of the Constitution, the New Democracy party\u2019s general rapporteur stated that his party proposes, in Article 41, paragraphs 2 and 5, the abolition of the often hypocritical invocation of a \u201cserious national issue\u201d for the early dissolution of Parliament and to replace it with a provision that would provide for \u201cDissolution upon a proposal by the government and a decision by Parliament to renew the popular mandate.\u201d In other words, the self-dissolution of Parliament, which is also more honest.<\/p>\n Parliament has been dissolved 11 times on the grounds of a national issue of exceptional importance pursuant to Article 41, paragraph 2 of the Constitution, in the years 1977, 1985, 1993, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2007, 2009, April 2012, 2019, and April 2023, as Mr. Stylianidis previously noted, adding:<\/p>\n \u201cUsually, the dissolution of Parliament pursuant to Article 41, paragraph 2 of the Constitution takes place after three years have elapsed, and a few months or even weeks before the end of its four-year term, in accordance with Article 53, paragraph 1 of the Constitution. The decision to dissolve Parliament pursuant to Article 41, paragraph 2 of the Constitution is made because if it were dissolved following the resignation of the government, as occurred in August 2015, then a caretaker government must be appointed in its place, in accordance with Article 37, paragraph 3 of the Constitution, as revised in 1986.\u201d<\/p>\n Regarding the proposed amendment to Article 44, the New Democracy party\u2019s general rapporteur said that \u201cIn a referendum, it matters not only WHO poses the question, but also HOW it is posed.\u201d<\/p>\n The wording of the dilemma can skillfully elicit the consent of the electorate, raising contemporary issues of demagoguery, said Euripides Stylianidis, noting that the use of digital referendums\u2014which are faster, easier, and cheaper to organize\u2014is gradually becoming more widespread.<\/p>\n \u201cThey undoubtedly boost citizen participation, but technical measures must be in place to ensure the integrity of the process and the secrecy of the vote,\u201d said the New Democracy MP, explaining: \u201cTo protect this right to participation and citizens\u2019 freedom of choice from modern demagogues, New Democracy proposes that Article 44, paragraph 2, of the Constitution guide the legislature so that the question is phrased in a way that is understandable and clear, that is, in a way that citizens can understand. There should be a sufficient interval of at least 20 days between the announcement and the holding of the referendum, so that citizens can be fully and objectively informed before making a decision, so that their decisions and choices are not the product of constitutional populism, but are level-headed and rational, for the benefit of Greece and the Greek people.\u201d<\/p>\n Only under these conditions can the Constitution delegate more powers to society, based on the belief that \u201cthe more responsibility you delegate to citizens, the more they are trained to make responsible decisions,\u201d noted the New Democracy party\u2019s general rapporteur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Euripides Stylianidis\u2019s position on the constitutional amendment. \u201cA single term for the President of the Republic strengthens …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The President of the Republic<\/h3>\n
The dissolution of Parliament<\/h3>\n
Referendums<\/h3>\n