Michalis Liapis’s impropriety was a moral one.

A transport minister should not travel with his ministry’s suppliers, or with the owner of a firm that is competing with the national carrier, Olympic Airways. There is a conflict of interests involved that casts shadows over the entire government.

The government’s impropriety is political, in that it allowed the issue to drag on for two weeks and the minister to make public information that was incomplete. It allowed the country’s political life to be dominated by a minor detail of the Siemens scandal rather than focusing on the admitted kickbacks of hundreds of millions of euros to political parties, politicians and state officials.

The government should immediately clear up the moral issue involving its minister and deal with the more serious issue of unlawful political funding. Encouraging public debate of secondary issues might serve some people’s interests, but it certainly does not do the government or the country’s political life any good.