May 1, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

There was a scandal in Cyprus over the Prime Minister's plane, donated by K. Mitsotakis


The scandal erupted over an old government aircraft, an Embraer 135, donated by Mr Mitsotakis to Cyprus as a token of gratitude for the assistance he provided to the Greek country during the fires.

But as it turns out, the plane has become a problem for the Republic of Cyprus as, according to a Politis report, the bill for maintaining and upgrading the presidential jet to fly safely has proven to be excessive for the small island nation. The report states that the total cost will be around 4 million euros.

In fact, the plane, which turned out to be… not very well controlled, had a number of technical problems, which, in turn, caused concern for President Christodoulides. The Embraer aircraft required major repairs and modernizationand was transferred to Portugal last July, where he was to remain for six months, the report said.

At the same time, it is emphasized that after the acquisition of the Falcon 7X, which Kyriakos Mitsotakis uses for his trips, it was decided to sell one of the four government aircraft, which turned out to be impossible, so Cyprus was given an Embraer -135. In other words, the Greek Air Force was freed from the enormous costs of maintaining the aircraft, which they “loaded” Cyprus with.

At the same time, according to the whistleblowing report, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense was informed of the audit department's report and expressed the opinion that the possibility of purchasing the aircraft was considered unprofitable. In turn, former Defense Minister Charalambos Petridis spoke out against the continuation of the purchase of the Greek aircraft…

The Cypriot media strongly “walked” over this “gift”, describing it as “It’s on you, God, that it’s not good for us”…





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