With the debate on the Constitutional Review<\/b> as well as the intra-party balance, the meeting of the Parliamentary Group of the New Democracy<\/b> after the speech of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The prime minister<\/b> in his speech set the political tone for the government<\/b>, while criticizing the opposition<\/b> and sending messages to the party’s inner circle.<\/p>\n
The MEPs<\/b> were motivated by three main axes: the institutional armouring<\/b> of the role of the member<\/b>, the need for party cohesion<\/b> ahead of elections and the defence<\/b> of the government’s work against attacks<\/b> by the opposition.<\/p>\n
First to speak was ND parliamentary representative Dimitris Kairidis<\/b>, who reportedly left hints<\/b> to MPs who publicly differentiate themselves without, he said, submitting<\/b> specific proposals. At the same time, he called for parliamentary group meetings to be held more often<\/b> and in a more “de-phased” atmosphere, describing them as “the most authentic expression of intra-party democracy.”<\/p>\n
Mr. Kairidis <\/b>also argued that New Democracy under Kyriakos Mitsotakis<\/b> remains the dominant political force that determines the political agenda, while he reiterated his proposal that the candidate lists<\/b> should indicate the number of crosses each MP receives.<\/p>\n
In the same vein, Giorgos Stylios,<\/b> who sent a message of rallying<\/b> and electoral readiness. “In a year from now we will have elections,” he said, stressing that the goal of the New Democracy is a new independent<\/b> victory with Kyriakos Mitsotakis as prime minister. The MP stressed that the government’s strongest weapon remains “the consistency of words and deeds”, calling on party members to remain united.<\/p>\n
The intervention of Makis Voridis,<\/b> who focused on the role of the MP and on what he said were attempts to disparage<\/b> the parliamentary function, was of particular interest. The minister left clear barbs against the European Public Prosecutor<\/b> Laura Covesi<\/b>, claiming that “the role of the member of parliament<\/b> is being questioned by an activist<\/b> judge”.<\/p>\n
Mr. Voridis spoke of the “criminalisation of political activity<\/b>“, noting that MPs cannot be treated as suspects because they receive citizens in their offices or communicate with the public administration c<\/b>on citizens’ issues. “We need definition<\/b> and a strong message against irresponsible opposition,” he said, while welcoming the prime minister’s position on upgrading the role of the MP.<\/p>\n
For his part, Euripides Stylianides<\/b> focused mainly on the institutional<\/b> dimension of the Constitutional Review, arguing that the changes promoted by the government are aimed at restoring<\/b> the principle of checks and balances, but also at the country’s transition “to a modern European institutional environment”.<\/p>\n
Thanasis Zembilis<\/b> also made an intervention with pointed remarks on the functioning of the political system<\/b>, referring specifically to articles 29, 60 and 81 of the Constitution<\/b>, posing, he said, the question of “what kind of democracy<\/b> we want, what kind of parliamentarianism we want and what is the role of the MP”. The MP clearly opposed any proposal to reduce the number of MPs.<\/p>\n
At that point, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis<\/b> intervened, clarifying that the Constitution<\/b> itself provides for a number of MPs of 200 to 300<\/b> and that there is no proposal in the context of the revision to reduce<\/b> the number of parliamentary seats.<\/p>\n
Proposals that provoked debate were also put forward by Tassos Dimoschakis,<\/b> who suggested increasing the entry threshold<\/b> to the Parliament to 6%, but also abolishing the state funding of parties<\/b>, proposing that they be funded exclusively by membership fees and donations<\/b> with full transparency. At the same time, he proposed the introduction of psychometric<\/b> tests for those wishing to run for parliament in the future.<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With the debate on the Constitutional Review and the internal party balances as a background, the meeting of the Parliamentary Group of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4428","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\/4428","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=4428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.tomanifesto.gr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}