The decision not to accept the position of Minister of Civil Protection in the restructuring, notified the Evangelos Apostolakis in a statement on OPEN television.
“I cannot accept Mr Mitsotakis” proposal under these circumstances," he said.
Evangelos Apostolakis was announced by C. Economou as minister in the nerve-wracking and newly established Ministry of Civil Protection, as Kyriakos Mitsotakis theorized that Mr Apostolakis has the ability, knowledge, experience, performance and of course the authority to meet the requirements of this ministry based on his long experience in the armed forces both at the operational and administrative level.
In this way, the Prime Minister wanted to implicitly ask for the consensus of the opposition in the civil protection part, which will also include the Fire Brigade.
For his part, Evangelos Apostolakis reportedly informed the President of SYRIZA Alexis Tsipras last Monday about the proposal made by Mr Mitsotakis to take over the position of Mr Chardalias. During their communication, Mr Tsipras made it clear to him that such a choice, and in the way that Mr Mitsotakis is pursuing it, i.e. at the level of “impressions and faces” and not in terms of substance to address the climate crisis, is not an invitation to an understanding but invitation to defection.
Apostolakis is said to have assured him that he would not accept to become a minister of the right wing under these conditions, which eventually resulted in an announcement and a reversal.
For now, there is no comment from Maximos.
