Proper coordination
The tragicomedy we are currently witnessing, chiefly in television debates, regarding who had been informed about last Saturday’s fatal Chinook crash and at what precise time, only superficially addresses certain problems that are becoming increasingly entrenched, and – in the fullness of time – will threaten the orderly operation of the government. The problem concerns the proper coordination of government cadres, at least in emergency situations, such as the helicopter crash or the doping scandal on the eve of the Olympics. In contrast to the harmonious cooperation of government departments during the Olympics, in the case of the Chinook and the Kenteris-Thanou scandal, there was an evident overlapping of competencies and the diffusion of responsibilities leading to lack of communication and the sense that the situation was out of control… But such occurrences should provide the foundation for debate and for corrective action to be taken in due course. And these changes in the composition and attitude of the state machinery, which have been overdue for years, demand a certain temperance as well as decisiveness based on the well-worked-out plan of a tightly organized government – something that Costas Karamanlis pledged to create both before and after he came to power…
