This summer, which has been such a difficult one not only for Greece but also for much of the rest of Europe, is by no means over yet.

Unfortunately, countless forest fires with their terrible toll on human life have been raging not only here in our own country but across much of southern Europe. A number of countries have been ravaged by their destructive mania.

In Greece, given the longstanding and continuing ineffectiveness of the state apparatus, crises of these types, of such magnitude, are infinitely more difficult to deal with.

The lives which have sadly been lost call for silence. Everyone – and more than anyone else the political parties – must seriously consider what went wrong and what must be done to avert a repetition.

Cockfights are all well and good, but out here in the real world there are some very real problems. And it is these problems that urgently demand solutions.