By Ilias Karagiannis.
A letter sent by the Greek Community of Melbourne (GCM) to the Greek government calling for a solution to the slow service and insufficient staffing at the Consulate of Greece in Melbourne, has since received the backing of Kyriakos Velopoulos’ Greek Solution party.
Mr Velopoulos submitted a question to Greece’s Parliament on Friday, February 16, calling on the Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis to address the GCM’s concerns.
In his submission, Mr Velopoulos stressed there are currently only four employees at the Consulate in Melbourne to serve the Greek expatriates, whilst in other foreign cities with a smaller number of Greeks, such as Hamburg for example, the Consulate is staffed with double and triple the number of staff.
The submission further highlighted how in the past, the Consulate employed up to 15 people, while today it takes more than two years for appointments to obtain Greek citizenship or other issues.
Given all the above, Mr Velopoulos asked the Foreign Minister, “Do you intend to take appropriate action to increase the staff of the General Consulate of Melbourne, so that the service provided by it to the expatriate community, as well as to Australians who wish to visit our homeland or have commercial and investment relations with Greece, becomes more efficient and is provided within a short period of time?”
Following this development and in accordance with the regulation of the Greek Parliament, Foreign Minister Gerapetritis is now requested to respond to Mr Velopoulos within 25 days.
In the event that Mr Velopoulos is not satisfied with the Minister’s answer, he may turn the question into an interrogation. Interrogations are discussed in the Plenary Session of the Hellenic Parliament. If there are more questions on the same subject, the Parliament may decide to debate them simultaneously, or even generalise the discussion.
One thing that’s certain is that in the coming days, the GCM will get answers to this particular issue.
