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Greece proceeds with Constitution Revision in public consultation

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is scheduled to address Tuesday noon the special parliamentary committee overseeing the initiative of the coalition government for a review of the Greek Constitution.

The process of the revision of the Greek Constitution is currently in the phase of public consultation.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras presented the government’s major proposals for the Constitution revision. Among them are:

  • Elections: Constitutional introduction of simple proportionality
  • Prime Minister: Constructive vote of no confidence. The censure motion against the government to be accompanied with the proposal for a new PM.
  • With the exception of  “caretaker prime ministers”, one has to be elected member of the Greek Parliament in order become PM.
  • Possibility of direction vote for the President of the Republic: candidate to be elected with maximum consent of 2/3 of the lawmakers in two consecutive votes. If parliament votes fail to elect, the electorate will decide between the two candidates who earned majority of votes in last round of voting the Parliament.
  • Moderate increase of the President’s powers. the President should have the right to address the Parliament for good reasons, and some other minor changes.
  • No lawmaker should be elected for more than two consecutive legislation periods, or for more than eight consecutive years.
  • Obligation for a referendum for any treaty transferring sovereign powers of the State.
  • Provisions for Referenda initiated by public initiative: 500,000 signatures for national issues, 1,000,000 signatures for voted laws (except for budgetary issues), 1,000,000 for legislative changes initiated by the public.
  • Abolition of parliamentary immunity, possibly except for offenses directly related to the functionality and duties of the MPs.
  • Explicit guarantee of the religious neutrality of the state, with the Greek Orthodoxy to be recognized as  state religion
  • Explicit prohibition of abolishing state control over water and energy.
  • Clear guarantee of collective bargaining as the only means for determining salaries and wages.

Public consultation

Citizens invited to share their views on six key topics through the committee’s website, www.syntagma-dialogos.gov.gr.

Citizens need to log on through the Taxis Net system to complete the questionnaire, which takes an estimated 20 minutes and covers topics such as institutional reform, transparency and oversight, relations between church and state, collective freedoms and rights, and issues like environment, culture, and others..

All information regarding gender, age and place of resident will be used by the committee for statistical purposes and will remain confidential.

Once the public consultation process has been completed, the committee will be turning to scientific and social representatives from around the country in order to hear their views on the issues.

The committee is expected to present its recommendations in September. (athensnewsagency, in.gr, kathimerini)

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One comment

  1. People are starving and Alex and the Quislings (the new comedians in town) play constitution games. In the German colony, even mentioning the word “Constitution” makes everybody laugh for fear of not showing their shame.