The event for the cutting of the New Year’s cake of the Athens-Macedonian News Agency  on Friday was attended by Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister and government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis  who pointed out in his greeting, that the Democracy, after these fifty and a half years, is increasingly in need of reliable information.

“It is important that we are here today, both me representing the government, as well as the spokesperson of the main opposition party, Kostas Tsoukalas, the workers, the president of the Journalists Union of Athens’ Newspapers, the president of the Panhellenic Union of Journalists, the members of the Board of Directors, you my dear president, and today’s presence of all of us, in addition to the significant value of this annual event, for the cutting of the pie, also has many messages that I think we should send. The support for the Agency’s employees, the support for all the journalists, but also all the workers in the mass media, because our Democracy, after these fifty and a half years, every year is more and more in need of reliable information. It needs what the Athens and Macedonian News Agency has been doing all these years.

As he said: “We are living in a period where there is an attempt by part of the political system to turn back to the very difficult years that we wanted to leave behind – and I thought we had left behind – that of toxicity and misinformation. So, your role, of the entire world of journalism and even more of the Athens-Macedonian News Agency is more than important in this period”.

“I remind that in recent years – I have the honour of having this responsibility as the deputy minister in addition to being the prime minister responsible for press matters for a little over a year – in this period of time but also in the previous years after 2019, we legislated the abolition of simple defamation altogether, we legislated a series of tightening of penalties for offenses directed against journalists. Through the task force, which operates with the participation of all Associations, a series of proposals are heard very loudly and are gradually included in the public discourse and in government bills, while with the Registry – a further update of which will be presented to the next Cabinet- the Registry of the electronic and printed Press, now all the media operate according to rules and I refer to the newspapers and the internet, the sites” the government spokesperson emphasized.

Marinakis then highlighted the excellent cooperation he has with the editors’ unions, with the Agency, and with the management of public broadcaster ERT saying that “over the years we have managed to satisfy some of the very serious requests of the journalists world both in terms of the safety of journalists and in terms of their substantial support because the more powerful the media is, without discrimination, always with rules, the more power can be given to journalists”.

“I want to publicly thank the Journalists’ Unions again because through the pressure they exert in the context of the possibilities and the government, they often ask for more and it is reasonable. The enemy of the good is the best, but always with decency” Marinakis underlined.