-
.
- Ελληνικά
The President of the Republic Mr.Nicos Christodoulides chaired a meeting of the Council of Ministers at the Presidential Palace today: "The second special meeting of the Council of Ministers has been completed, with the aim of coordinating the preparation, the drafting of the State Budget for 2025.
As mentioned during the first meeting, the aim is for the second annual State Budget to record, to clearly reflect the vision and the stamp of President Christodoulides' governance programme.
There has been an extensive discussion about the Ministries that have presented today their flagship actions that they will include in this state budget, in this also surplus state budget. Then this compilation will be completed by each Ministry to enable the preparation of the State Budget that will be submitted in accordance with the procedures in September 2025 and the process will continue.
As was the case last year, this year too, each Ministry will present its action programmes. These action plans will be made public for our fellow citizens. Also, in early 2025, President Christodoulides will present at a special event the actions that will be implemented in 2025."
Asked whether the American decision to remove the pier they had built in Gaza affects the Amalthea initiative, the Spokesman said: "It does not affect to any extent as far as the continuation of the Amalthea initiative is concerned. Besides, let me remind you that from the very first moment when it was planned, when this plan for the implementation of the Amalthea sea corridor was drawn up, the intention of the US Government to build a pier was not at that time in our minds. The construction of a jetty obviously came after the first implementation of the initiative. The pier, the duration of the pier, is not the same as the duration of the initiative. There are already alternative ways of delivering humanitarian aid to the civilian population in Gaza in the planning of the initiative. And this effort is continuing. It is, moreover, very indicative of the fact that the self-diagnostic mobile machine was also received yesterday from Italy, as part of the European Civil Protection Mechanism. And this demonstrates the acceleration, the effort to strengthen the procedures even further. With exactly the same commitment and with the support of the international partners, who all continue to work in this effort, "Amalthea" is continuing as usual.
I should note here that the quantities of humanitarian aid reaching the civilian population in Gaza have increased rapidly in recent times and at the same pace we will try to continue to increase, precisely because the catalytic contribution of our initiative to the very great needs of the civilian population is recognized."
Asked whether the Government has any update on the intentions of the United Nations (UN) Secretary General (SG) following the submission of Ms. Holguín's report, the Spokesperson said: "The latest information we have from the UN Spokesperson is that the Secretary-General, after studying Ms. Holguín's report and assessing her recommendations, will invite the leaders to inform them of his own decisions as to the next steps to be taken in the effort to break the deadlock and resume negotiations. We will reiterate once again that we are at the disposal of the UN Secretary General with a sincere desire to make every effort to ensure that the deadlock is broken as soon as possible."
(PM/EP/AF/NZ)
Contents of this article including associated images are owned by PIO
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or PIO
Source
