Defence Minister Panos Kammenos

The anxieties of the last days are rooted is Ankara’s inability to stop the Greece-Cyprus-Israel collaboration or to impede the designs of international politics on the biggest underwater natural gas pipeline in the world, East Med.

For the first time, over recent days we witnessed the defence minister – who is known for his brazenness – competing with the militarists in Ankara with constant statements which raise many questions

What is of concern is what two ministers said in a cabinet meeting about the management of the state’s black budget and other funds, and that requires immediate investigation.

'Mr. Kammenos, who accused Mr. Kotzias of non-transparent procedures in disbursing the secret funds of the foreign ministry, must immediately make public whatever evidence he may have,' main opposition New Democracy declared.

With ministers accusing each other in a cabinet meeting and the prime minister allowing himself to be held hostage, we are dealing with nothing less than a government in decay.

The latest events confirm that all the planning of the PM’s office is up in the air. The prime minister is unable to determine developments, and the situation in the government camp is completely unforeseeable, as many cadres are acting with a view to the next day.

Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias has tendered his resignation to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who immediately accepted it and announced that he will assume the portfolio. The resignation comes straight on the heels of yesterday’s stormy cabinet meeting, during which Kotzias lambasted Defence Minister Panos Kammenos, Tsipras’ junior coalition partner, after Kammenos on an official visit to Washington trashed the government’s Greece-FYROM Prespa Agreement and presented his own “Plan B”. Following a vitriolic exchange, Kotzias stormed out of the cabinet meeting and two hours later, at his request, was received by President Prokopis Pavlopooulos, with whom he had an hour-and-a-half discussion. It is believed that he signaled his intentions to Pavlopoulos. In announcing today that he will assume the foreign affairs portfolio, a clearly unsettled Tsipras declared – in a clear message to Kammenos - that he will tolerate no double-talk or personal agendas on the part of ministers, and in a clear message to Greece’s allies, he strongly stressed his unswerving support for the “historic” Prespa Agreement and FYROM PM Zoran Zaev’s feverish efforts this week to pass in parliament the constitutional amendments required by the accord. Kotzias was reportedly enraged by Tsipras’ decision to keep an equal distance from his two ministers, even though Kotzias for months had conducted the arduous negotiation that led to an agreement that Tsipras fiercely defends and touts as an historic achievement. At the cabinet meeting, Kotzias ripped into Kammenos, charging that the defence minister is actively undermining the interests of Greece and the government. Late last night and this morning Kotzias’ associates signaled his intense annoyance and indicated that he was considering resigning. Those leaks triggered a decisive public reaction by government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, who repeated the late prime minister Andreas Papandreou’s famed quote that “whoever cannot endure should get off the train”, a thinly veiled allusion to Kotzias. That statement strongly suggests that Tsipras had already had taken his decision to sacrifice Kotzias in order to save his coalition with Kammenos. That appears to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. Some said that Kotzias was a step closer to resigning and others that Kotzias was already gathering his personal effects in the ministry. Government cadres are said to have aligned themselves with the substance of Tzanakopoulos’s message. Kotzias was reportedly enraged by Tsipras’ decision to keep an equal distance from himself and Defence Minister Panos Kammenos, even though Kotzias for months had conducted the arduous negotiations that led to the Prespa Accord, which Tsipras fiercely defends and touts as an historic achievement.

Mr. Tsipras, with his secret meetings and subterranean arrangements with his coalition partner, is trying to extend his stay in office as much as possible, but it is by now clear to everyone, even to his ministers, that he can persuade no one.

It is inconceivable for a minister whose portfolio is unrelated to foreign affairs to set a foreign policy different than that of the government, or to issue invitations and hand over cities to become foreign bases.

Yesterday, we learned that a minister can, unhindered, create a new defence dogma, decide alliances and plot out military bases in other countries, and be called to order politely by the prime minister, and no one reacts.

The images revealed by investigative reporting at the Moria refugee camp, on the island of Lesvos, are not only shameful. They are images of horror.

The arrest of journalists was carried by the international media and embarrassed the country, as Greece appeared as a state that tramples on freedom of the press

The Defence Minister said that his Independent Greeks party, the junior coalition partner, will withdraw its trust in the government if the Greece-FYROM naming accord is tabled in the Greek parliament for ratification