Strengthening the Fire Department's fleet "is necessary, but the government is trying to hide behind the vehicles the long-term and growing problems of the Fire Department and of Civil Protection," said two officers of PASOK-Movement for Change (KINAL) on Friday, commenting on the prime minister's attendance of the delivery of new fire trucks.

Responding were PASOK's Deputy (Argolid) Andreas Poulas, responsible for the party's Climate Crisis and Civil Protection division, and Michalis Chalaris, secretary of the same division. Friday's event "was nothing more than another communication performance in the framework of diverting public opinion from the government policy's repeated dead ends," they claimed.

In a joint statement, Poulas and Chalaris said that firefighters are owed nearly 2 million days off and over 500,000 days of vacation that have not been given, without any reimbursement for their frequent travel. "Permanent-contract firefighters continue not to receive the subsidy for dangerous and unhealthy work, while the seasonal ones are called on every year to operate without basic job stability and career prospects," they said. The government must start investing in prevention, firefighters, equipment, infrastructure and the real resilience of Greece, they stressed.