The Hellenic Radio (ERA): News in English, 00-11-29

The Hellenic Radio (ERA): News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

From: The Hellenic Radio (ERA) <www.ert.gr/>

CONTENTS

29/11/2000 10:01:53 ðì

[01] Simitis met Papantoniou yesterday

Mr Papantoniou briefed the prime minister on the signing of the Third EU Support Framework amounting to 44.29 billion Euro (about 16 trillion drs). The national economy minister referred to the importance of these funds for the upgrading of infrastructure works during the period 2000-2006, stressing that the right use of the funds would change the country's picture within the next years. They also discussed about the course of the Athens Stock Exchange.

Meanwhile, the Committee of Monetary Policy yesterday decided to go ahead with further decrease of basic interest rates by half a point.

[02] Fuel prices went up by 3 drachmas

In the meantime, fuel prices went up by 3 drachmas as of midnight yesterday.

[03] Simitis gave the green light for the privatisation of OA

Meanwhile, 40 PASOK deputies are expected to submit a question in Parliament today about the course of Olympic Airways. They will ask about the future of employees.

[04] Simitis is paying a two-day visit to Hungary

Today, Mr Simitis will meet with his Hungarian counterpart, while in the afternoon he will be received by the president of the Hungarian Republic.

[05] Greek-Turkish relations

Mr Reppas also left open the possibility for Greece to veto the text of the partnership relationship if the Helsinki decision was not clearly stated.

Earlier, the Turkish foreign minister Ismail Cem had maintained in Brussels that the relevant text did not reflect Helsinki's conclusions and reiterated that the Cyprus dispute and Greek-Turkish relations did not consist political criteria for Turkey and could not be included in the text.

[06] Olympic Games 2004

The topic of the discussions was the sharing of the Australians experiences from the 2000 Games, which they hosted.

The "Athens 2004" committee was very pleased over the advice they received, in the closed-door meetings with the Australians.

[07] Royal property

In parallel, the secretary general of the PASOK party Central Committee Kostas Skandalidis stressed that the Greek government would exhaust all constitutional and legislative in order to safeguard the interests of the Greek people.

For his part, the leader of the New Democracy party Kostas Karamanlis underlined that Konstantinos Gluxbourg should be treated as an ordinary individual, whose problem should be solved on the grounds of international law but not at the expense of the Greek state.

The leader of the Coalition of the Left Wing party Nikos Konstantopoulos described the claims of ousted king Konstantinos as provocation to democracy.

Konstantinos Gluxbourg, in an interview yesterday, explained that he claimed the Tatoi and Mon Repo properties because he felt he had the right to own two houses as all Greeks do.

[08] The EU Agriculture Ministers' council will meet on December 4

However, in his speech at the Parliament yesterday, Greek agriculture minister Giorgos Anomeritis once again reassured that no case of the mad cow disease has ever been reported in Greece so far.

He also stressed that only 40 thousand tones of animal feed from meat-flour was used in Greece compared to the 1,660.000 tons of animal feed consumed annually.

[09] Á statue was discovered

The Hellenic Radio (ERA): News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article