Editorial: State of readiness

Last summer with the major August wildfires, the competent state services got a lesson the hard way.

The climate change and civil protection ministry is obliged to handle extreme weather conditions, resulting from climate change, which is very much with us, and not just a future dystopia.

According to Ta Nea’s sources, the ministry is already threshing out a plan for the fire season and hopes to announce it as soon as possible.

The speed with which the government is moving is welcome, as are agreements with Northern European countries that have agreed to provide Greece with experienced, specialised fire-fighting teams this coming summer, along with the full utilisation of RescEU material and technical infrastructure.

Yet, readiness will be judged by whether the Greek state is capable of transcending its dysfunctions.

Civil protection cannot be reorganised in a span of six months, and the diachronic problem of the overlapping competencies of state and regional services cannot be remedied so swiftly, but surely the time has come to take the first steps.

The state must demonstrate that it is determined to move decisively in the right direction.

Timely preparation on all matters on which state structures have the capability to act preventively is the beginning, and that is half the battle.