{"id":1747,"date":"2026-04-21T12:39:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=1747"},"modified":"2026-04-21T12:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T09:39:00","slug":"nikos-romanos-on-waivers-of-immunity-there-is-no-question-of-party-discipline-in-tomorrows-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/?p=1747","title":{"rendered":"Nikos Romanos on waivers of immunity: There is no question of party discipline in tomorrow’s vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is no question of party discipline<\/strong> in tomorrow’s vote,” the Prime Minister’s Director of Digital Communications<\/strong> pointed out, Nikos Romanos<\/strong>, in an interview with ERTnews Radio 105.8<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As he explained, “there is also no question of any message<\/strong>,” responding to the possibility that a large number of deputies not to vote for all the immunity waivers and whether this could be perceived as a message to the government.<\/p>\n

Mr. Romanos said there are specific facts:
“One is that the MEPs mentioned in the documentation<\/strong>and for whom a waiver of immunity<\/strong> is being sought have themselves requested that it be granted. Beyond that, there’s another issue.
If someone says they’re voting against a waiver of immunity for one person and not another, it’s like implying that the latter is more guilty. It’s a bad position<\/strong> for an MP to assign such weight. That is my personal view.
In any case, it is a matter of personal weighting<\/strong> for each Member, and that is perfectly respectable. So there is no question of a result that can be used by the opposition<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

On the resignation of Lazaridis<\/h3>\n

Referring to the resignation of Mr. Lazaridis’ resignation<\/strong>, he spoke of manipulation of the case<\/strong> by the opposition and a “hypocritical attitude”.<\/p>\n

“He came out, presented his folder<\/strong> and answered questions, which were largely created as a narrative by the opposition.
He eventually submitted his resignation to avoid creating communication issues<\/strong> for the government. That’s the bottom line,” he noted.<\/p>\n

He added: “We’re talking about a case involving twenty years back<\/strong> and the hiring of a transferee. Everyone evaluates it however they want. But there is also the issue of conscientiousness<\/strong> and personal weight<\/strong>. In such cases, some choose to make it easier by resigning.
This does not mean that we should accept the view that we are all the same<\/strong>, nor should we be wagging our fingers at people who have been the lead in similar cases.”<\/p>\n

He also made a comparison with the past: “I say this on the issue of incrimination<\/strong>. I remember under SYRIZA first-class ministers being without a degree.”<\/p>\n

“We are different<\/strong>. That’s why such issues become major, but there’s also the civility of giving up<\/strong>. And this is not the first time this has happened,” he stressed.<\/p>\n

About the timing of the resignation<\/h3>\n

In response to why the resignation was not made earlier, he noted:
“The resignation came after a series of explanations<\/strong> given by Mr. Lazaridis.
We were accused of elitism<\/strong>, of representing Oxford. The reality is that many of our officials have strong academic qualifications<\/strong>, but that does not mean that a politician’s worth is judged solely by their degree.
There are very good ministers with different levels of education. A minister and an MP are judged by their work<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

About the political agenda and OPEKEPE<\/h3>\n

About the news of the last weeks, Mr. Romanos admitted:
“Indeed, in recent weeks the government has not fully defined the political agenda<\/strong>. But I think that is changing.”<\/p>\n

As he explained, the developments are linked to the leaks about the OPEKEPE<\/strong>:
“The way the leaks happened, it was logical that they would monopolize interest. Until then, we were setting the agenda with measures for accuracy<\/strong> and everyday life.”<\/p>\n

And it ended up: “The anti-opposition expectations of toxicity<\/strong> have been dashed. That’s why we no longer see the same tension around the OPEKEPE dossier. What it turned out to be was that there was a communication “bubble”<\/strong>. We have to remind ourselves of what we have changed, highlight the reforms<\/strong> and the fight against the partisan state<\/strong>. The opposition is investing in communication because it has no counter-proposals<\/strong>.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no question of party discipline in tomorrow’s vote,” the Prime Minister’s Director of Digital Communication, Nikos Romanos, said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1747","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\/1747","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=1747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}