Weaknesses of legislations As stated at the introduction of this chapter, it seems that there is not a feasible solution in the horizon regarding legal regulations to eliminate fygostratia. One important proof to that is the statement from the then Minister of
Defence in 2011, through which he confirmed that they tried every possible mean based on what they were legally allowed to do54 and that also the new law about the National Guard was expected to work successfully. Two years earlier though, in 2009, he stated that they cannot eliminate fygostratia only through the law55. This is something that is probable if we consider the discussion in the previous pages. Even the last measure, the law proposal by Mr Varnava, is facing obstacles similar with those of the previously suggested provisions which were unconstitutional or never passed anyway.
Why do they fail? An interesting question that is rising at this point is why almost nothing was achieved the previous years. This question can be partly answered through the ex-Minister of Defence Mr Papakostas’ statement56 in which he informs about the failure in the alternative service regulations. One of the reasons to that is the following: People approved for alternative social service are out of the control of the Minister of Defence and so they never go to perform their given duties or they go for only a while and then they leave away, or they even go and create problems to the other workers or they disobey to perform their duties57. Another reason which can be hypothesized is the difficulty and inability from the part of the Minister of Defence to supervise and lead the way, as, based on a very recent article (11 April 2013)58, the Head of the Parliamentary Board of Defence stated that the Ministry of Defence, which deals with the coordination of the public services in order to effectively apply the legislation, in fact didn’t do anything serious so far.
54
http://www.financialmirror.com/news-greek-details.php?nid=5537 http://www.sigmalive.com/news/local/171163 56 http://www.moi.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/All/D46119FE9AB2F594C22575A500637D63?Opendocument 55
57
http://www.sigmalive.com/news/local/171163
58
http://www.politis-news.com/cgibin/hweb?-A=232899&-V=articles
27