The Greek minister responsible for the issues and concerns of Greeks abroad will be visiting Australia this month.
Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Kostas Tsiaras will commence his visit on the 28 February in Perth and is expected to be in Melbourne for the Antipodes Festival on the 16 March.
Mr Tsiaras says he is aware of the concerns and objections to the changes in the Greek tax law.
“I am making a major personal effort, in consultation with the Finance Ministry team, to see if we might be able to make some of these regulations more favourable. I think there is room for us to deal with some things, so that we can allay these major concerns,” he says.
Regarding to the proposed changes to the World Council of Hellenes Abroad Mr Tsiaras says the “SAE has tired people, hasn’t inspired interest among Greeks abroad as a whole, and obviously serves virtually none of the purposes set out in its founding charter. Simply put, it neither represented Greeks abroad as we would like to have seen it do, nor did it exhibit dynamism, nor was it ever an institutional collocutor with the Greek state, as it was designed to be at its founding. So we had to create a new state of affairs that, on the one hand, will spark the interest of all Greeks abroad, and, on the other, will enable it to function as it should. This state of affairs is being remedied on three axes, as set out in the new draft law: self-organization, self-funding, and vertical representation of Greeks abroad.
“In other words – and I am referring mainly to the third axis – whereas, to date, first- and second-degree organizations participated in the SAE, from now on all citizens of Greek decent, wherever they are in the world, will have the right to vote as individuals and members of the SAE. So the SAE will operate in another dimension, giving the right to every Greek abroad to feel represented, and I think this will create a completely different dynamic”.