N. KOTZIAS: Good morning to everyone. This is one of the good days, for two reasons.
First, because we have here at our Ministry my friend and Minister of the first order, Mr. Kouroumblis, Minister of Interior, Administrative Reconstruction and much else – I won’t describe it all. And, second, because it occasions the external action of two of the country’s Ministry’s.
I would like to say that we are in a difficult era overall in Europe. You saw the results of the referendum in Holland and the search on many sides for a way to cancel out this result.
In my opinion, the result of the referendum in Holland is a result of the fact that Europe does not focus on its values, principles and visions – how it will be adequately constructed, to the benefit of its citizens in the 21st century – but has become entrapped in the policies of the memorandums, sanctions, embargos, with the result that Europe’s citizens themselves do not find Europe’s face very alluring.
The action we are going to be talking about today is one that benefits citizens, in the framework of a Europe as we perceive it. Because our country is historically a diaspora power, and we are well aware that a state that is built with perspective and to the benefit of its citizens, and that links its advantages and assets with its diaspora, is a state that can solve many, many problems and can capitalize on its citizens and friends abroad, which is something we don’t always do as fully as we would like, and we often inconvenience our fellow citizens of the diaspora, as well as our foreign friends who want to visit Greece.
At the center of the thinking behind this plan, which the Foreign and Interior Ministries are starting to implement jointly, is the citizen and the quality of services we provide for that citizen.
Because we have entered a new era, an era of globalization, wherein the Foreign Ministry – with the help of the Ministry of Interior contributing wherever it can to the activities of the Foreign Ministry – must make a major shift in many areas.
We need to strengthen our presence in many states, like China, India, Nigeria, which is the strongest emerging country in Africa, and convince our diplomats of the importance of these states.
Second, we have to ensure the better structuring of our services and send our best staff to such Embassies and new Directorates. As you know, we have created a new Directorate for China, Mongolia and Korea, with China at the epicenter, of course.
The Foreign Ministry also has to be configured in such a way as to capitalize on all the potential of the digital age. We, too, here at the Foreign Ministry, need to understand what the digital age means for us. We need to look at all of our diplomatic problems from the standpoint of globalization and the digital age,.
So we want our diplomacy to serve the homeland, the citizen, but to have a foundation in electronic digital communication. Electronic digital communication has many advantages. I will tell you about just a few of them.
They have a lower cost. Our staff in the Information and Public Diplomacy Department, under Mr. Koutras and Mr. Efthymiou, found that we will save at least 50,000 man-hours. Electronic communication serves the citizen, who is at the center of our policy. It shapes a better political culture in our relations with our diaspora. It facilitates and improves our country’s image in the world, which is frequently not the best of images, with the lines at our consulates, for someone who likes, who is interested in, who wants to visit our country.
We will also be able to redeploy our consular resources with regard to visas, reducing the time necessary for serving citizens abroad.
The Information Department decided we should name this programme “Proxenos”, and we adopted the name, with the Roman “e” used in the Greek spelling as well – «Πρόξeνος» -- meaning that it is a programme for consulates in the digital age.
It is a programme aimed at doing away with lines of Greeks or of visitors to our country, and at making consular services more convenient for all of these people.
The programme provides access to the National Civil Registry. We thank the Ministry of Interior very much for this huge assistance it is giving to our Ministry, to Greek citizens of the diaspora, whom the Interior Ministry, as well as the Interior Minister personally, always has at the center of its thoughts and soul.
We are beginning with the Dusseldorf Consulate, where former spokesperson Delavekouras is, in cooperation with Mr. Koutras, who is in Athens. For a week we are monitoring the operation of the programme in Dusseldorf, and we will then extend it to all of our consulates and to all requests concerning everything from birth certificates to civil status.
I don’t know whether you have lived abroad as part of the Greek diaspora or whether you have been to a consulate. People take time off work so they can travel a whole day – losing wages – so they can go to a consulate. At the consulate they say, “fill out an application,” and they leave again, and they have to return. They often ask two or three times, missing several workdays. They are inconvenienced and angered by their country.
These procedures are now being done away with, thanks to the new potential we are gaining through capitalizing on digital services. Application and receipt will be a matter of a few minutes. It will be, I would say, a kind of Citizen Service Center (KEP) abroad and it will create a better image for our country.
I thank Mr. Koutras very much, as well as Mr. Delavekouras, whom I had the opportunity to talk at length with in Germany, at the beginning of this programme.
I thank the Foreign Ministry, which enabled us to enter the electronic age. I thank the Ministry’s technicians for their high level of training and their round-the-clock work in bringing this programme to fruition.
We have entered the digital era. We want to digitize other tasks and services, as well, at the Ministry. You know that the digitization of the Historical and Diplomatic Archive is ready, and we will have a similar event.
We want to digitize the potential for access, applications and results at our translation service, because here in the country, as regards translations, citizens face the same difficulty as the members of the diaspora do at consulates. They have to come in from the provinces, submit a request, and come back for their translations.
I think that, despite the difficult times the country is going through, and, in fact, in contrast to these difficulties, thanks to the excellent personal and official cooperation with the Ministry of Interior, the Foreign Ministry, too – at speed, albeit after a delay – is entering the age of electronic information, of digital interconnection of services, to citizens’ benefit.
I thank you for coming. Please spread the message, so that overseas Greek learn of it. I thank the Secretariat General for Greeks Abroad and the Director and Deputy Director, Messrs. Kokkinos and Plevrakis, for the good cooperation that exists in these sectors with the Ministry of Interior.
Panagiotis, my heartfelt thanks for your being here and for your help in our making the lives of Greek citizens abroad – and prospectively here, for those associated with us – easier, more convenient and better in terms of political culture.
Thank you very much.
P. KOUROUMBLIS: I, too, want to sincerely welcome today’s meeting for two reasons.
First, because today we are at a Ministry whose Minister manages in the best way one of the most critical Ministries that have to do with safeguarding the homeland’s national integrity. And I say this as a citizen of this country, and not because of our friendship.
Second, because, if only after a delay, an important project is being implemented. I won’t hesitate to say that we are not inventing the wheel here, but over the past 15 years, since e-governance began, over €7 billion has been spent on programmes, and, unfortunately, the obvious had not happened in the country.
N. KOTZIAS: And this was done at no cost, I must say.
P. KOUROUMBLIS: Exactly as Nikos says. The Technical Services of the two Ministries collaborated seamlessly, because, as you know, we tend to accuse civil servants, and we are always ready to run them down. But when they are given the opportunity and when they are entrusted with something, they carry it through in the best possible manner. At the Ministry of Interior, with the competent Directorate General, headed by Theodoros Economou, the Director, Stratis Maragkos, as well as all the personnel of the Ministry, we have embarked on a gigantic effort with ambitious goals.
The ambitious goals are to move ahead decisively towards the interoperability of state databases that touch on first base, which is the National Civil Registry. A great deal of institutional and substantial work has been done in the area of the National Civil Registry, and based on this, already, as of the day before yesterday, we had the pleasure of announcing the interconnection of the National Civil Registry with the Education Ministry’s “My School” information system, and thus hundreds of thousands of pieces of information on hard copy are now obsolete, saving thousands of man-hours for the public sector.
The same was done by the Interior Ministry Services, collaborating with the Foreign Ministry, with Mr. Koutras and the other personnel here at the Ministry, in a spirit of precisely this understanding, so that we could send a message to the Greeks of the diaspora at a difficult time, at a time when the homeland is going through a major economic, social and, now, refugee crisis. In this melancholy and often gloomy environment, we are trying to provide rays of hope.
Because we, I and the Foreign Minister, are among the people who believe in Hellenism’s DNA. We believe that, in spite of the difficulties, Hellenism will overcome the major problems it is facing. After all, Hellenism has been tested many times during its long history and has proven that it has within it the strength to overcome these major issues that often threaten to bury it.
In such a spirit, we are today moving ahead with the process of interoperability, which will make life easier, as the Minister so rightly highlighted, for thousands of Greeks abroad who are forced to visit our consulates far from their places of residence. All of this will gradually become a thing of the past, because the country is dynamically entering the space of e-governance.
And because we don’t want to give you just words, I say that our goal is for the 15 largest state data bases to be interoperable within 2016.
We believe that this work being done today at the Foreign Ministry is bringing diaspora Greeks closer to us, showing them that they are always in our thoughts and that we care about them.
I too want to thank the Minister for the interest he has shown, along with his personnel and the Secretariat General for Greeks Abroad, and mainly here, my own associates, Messrs. Economou and Maragkos, who are here today and can give you, if you wish, additional clarifications.
I want to thank you again and to say that often the public sector itself, in such a spirit of trust and cooperation, can produce work that private citizens – the Greek people – often pay a high price for, without getting the commensurate results. Thank you.
N. KOTZIAS: Thank you, Panagiotis.
COORDINATOR: Are there any questions you would like to put to the Ministers?
S. ARAVOPOULOU (Athens News Agency): Mr. Minister, with regard to Greeks abroad, as we now have the new wave of Greeks abroad who may have greater needs with regard to certificates, etc. This is the first step. Are there second steps in this direction?
P. KOUROUMBLIS: We aren’t stopping here. The potential of e-governance – in the context of the age we are living in, that of accelerated performance – is vast. I’ll tell you just one thing: Estonia has currently reached the level where, in a quarter of an hour, calling a specific number, you can become an e-resident of Estonia. One can see that the space for improvement is great.
We will make steady and determined use of this potential to make the Greeks of the diaspora truly feel that, “electronically”, they virtually live in Greece.
N. KOTZIAS: Let me say that we are embarking on a plan, a project, that has all the potential to be extended digitally into all of the necessary sectors, but our new diaspora has characteristics different from those of previous generations.
In the past, we had the immigration of people with a low level of education; people who could not find unskilled-labor jobs in Greece and went abroad. Today, unfortunately, and at a high cost to the country, highly specialized and high-quality personnel are leaving – people with extensive knowledge of digital systems and electronic information.
As a result, the Foreign Ministry would like to urge them – based on the experiences they have abroad – to give us their opinion, their scientific knowledge, and we can try, with the Secretariat General for Greeks Abroad, to utilize them to enrich the knowledge we have and are gaining, through this collaboration with the Interior Ministry, with their thoughts, the wisdom of the souls of Greek immigrants, so that they can be linked even more effectively with the Greek state, and with the door always open for their return to this land that needs them so much and is so grieved to lose them, if only temporarily.
N. ZIRGANOS (Efirmerida ton Syntakton): Of course the initiative is laudable, but I wonder why we had to wait so long for something so obvious. I would like to ask – in your experience, those of you who are involved in this and the two ministers, personally – what was it that stymied this process for so long? Was it a matter of mindset? Priorities? Funding? Attitude?
N. KOTZIAS: Offhand, I would say there are two causes. One is that the new age has not adequately sunk in for all of us. The demands and potential of this new age, and that is why I highlighted earlier that all of the Ministries – and ours in particular – need to understand that we are living in the age of globalization – with its problems – and digital possibilities. The second is, and I say this as a citizen, that in Greece, unfortunately, even the obvious isn’t done. It is a major step for us to conquer this.
P. KOUROUMBLIS: I will share a small experience with you. It really is an incisive and justifiable question. So what happened? There was money. A lot of money was spent. What didn’t happen? I tell you that the requisite determination of will was missing.
From the first moment I went to the Ministry of Interior – and this can be verified – once a week the competent committee met in my presence. Because you know how many problems arise between the personnel themselves.
Whether this path will be followed, or some other, with the result that all of this impacts the delays. And when there was a choice of vertical interventions rather than horizontal ones, today the country – this is unfortunately the reality of the situation – does not have interoperability between its databases.
We moved ahead, we made a lot of institutional interventions and are continuing to do so, because that is how problems that arise are solved. We estimate that in October we will have the Citizens’ Registry.
This is now what is most vital to solving all of the next moves that have to take place, because without the Citizens’ Registry the results would often be wrong. Even one wrong letter can cause a name to bring up some other data. This has to be cleared up, removed from our registries.
Now, why this wasn’t done over all these years and why so much money was spent are among the questions of our time.
N. KOTZIAS: It’s like saying, Panagiotis, that while the postman will never lose a letter, even if it has three wrong letters in the name or the surname, the electronic system will lose it because of one wrong letter.
And let me say it as I understand it, and the Minister, if you will allow me, and how I understand it and want to underscore it. The Greek public sector has excellent personnel. I’m not saying everyone is excellent, but it has excellent personnel. The political leadership of these excellent personnel need to open the way and let their talent, thought and knowledge unfold, and not hold them back.
P. KOUROUMBLIS: What the Minister is saying. They need to feel close to them and that together we are striving for something good for the homeland. And what we need to do is something for the homeland. We will deal with the rest, our personal matters.
N. KOTZIAS: One more question.
JOURNALIST: Mr. Kouroumblis, you said earlier that €15 billion was spent in 7 years, if I’m not mistaken. Is that the case?
P. KOUROUMBLIS: €7 billion. The reverse.
JOURNALIST: You made some insinuations, that this money might not have gone to the right place. Can you clarify that for us a little more?
Also, if possible, I would like you to give us a timeframe regarding what you said about the 15 largest databases.
P. KOUROUMBLIS: Within 2016.
I demand of myself and of my associates, and I tell them, I don’t know what we’re going to do, I will be the first to cut off my head, what I said, I don’t want to become a laughingstock.
N. KOTZIAS: We don’t want you to cut off your head, Mr. Minister.
P. KOUROUMBLIS: What we said. Within 2016, we are determined. And at this time, as you can see, the first step was taken at the Education Ministry, now at the Foreign Ministry, and we are continuing to work with resolve and confirming that the road we are following, I believe, is the right one.
And our associates will say a few words.
JOURNALIST: Are there questions regarding companies or political management?
P. KOUROUMBLIS: I don’t make insinuations, but this is the reality of the situation. Perhaps wrong choices were made. A great deal of money was spent. What I said. The money didn’t accomplish what it should have.
When the Public Sector’s databases don’t function, whatever was done, what can I say? That I was at the Health Ministry and there were 17 systems running in parallel because perhaps some leadership wanted to satisfy a number of clients and there was no provision for the various systems’ being interoperable?
This simple thing. Interoperability. Okay, use different companies, but there should be one condition: interoperability. That’s what happened. Now, whether the money was misappropriated, I don’t know whether it was misappropriated. They may not have misappropriated the money, but the way it was spent, it didn’t accomplish what it should have. That is the painful truth.
JOURNALIST: There is no company involved in the specific programme for the interconnection with the consulates?
P. KOUROUMBLIS: There is absolutely no cost. We didn’t pay.
JOURNALIST: Will you be taking part in today’s ministerial meeting on the refugee crisis, at the Maximus Mansion?
N. KOTZIAS: I had them here earlier. I had the Slovak Minister here and, if my schedule allows, I will meet with them this evening.
JOURNALIST: I’m talking about the ministerial meeting on the refugee crisis that we heard is going to take place at the Prime Minister’s office.
N. KOTZIAS: I am not aware of the convening of the cabinet committee on the refugee crisis, of which we are both members. I participate in these meetings as a member of the interministerial committee, which is not convening today. At the Foreign Ministry – as some of you seem to forget this – the competent Minister is Alternate Minister Xydakis.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that, in the past, looking at older legislative initiatives, we had personnel dedicated to migration; personnel who, by ministerial decisions, were moved to other ministries. In contrast, today, you should know that a presidential decree has been issued, with my decision, providing for the creation of a migration section in the C4 Directorate, so that the Foreign Ministry can have, for the first time, a special Directorate for Migration, which it didn’t have in the past, and, by extension, we will not give our specialized personnel on migration to third ministries. It has been shown that we need to keep them here, and we have announced a competition for our hiring the first expert on migration.
But all of these C Directorates come under Mr. Xydakis.
T. ECONOMOU: I wouldn’t want to ignore or underestimate the importance of the project or the huge benefits it will produce for Hellenism abroad and visitors to our country. But if we wanted to cut the symbolic ribbon on a specific project today, it would perhaps be for another reason. For the reason that, for the first time, with this project, the interoperability of the information systems of the public administration is going beyond our borders.
The technologies exist, the potential exists, and just as today we are linking up with Dusseldorf and tomorrow with the world, with the same technologies we could interconnect Greece’s public administration with the public administration systems of European states, in a small step, for a small country, towards a larger goal of European integration for the provision of comprehensive pan-European electronic services.
Think of a driver’s license, as an example, that is issued in Greece but can be renewed in any European country. The technologies already exist. The potential has been proven to exist. Thank you.
N. KOTZIAS: Good day to you all.
April 8, 2016