Stefanos Manos met and worked with Konstantinos Karamanlis and Kostas Karamanlis. And if cooperation with the founder of the ND, who elected him and included him on the ballots in 1977, was constructive, then his cooperation with the younger Karamanlis was rather fruitless and episodic. This quickly ended with the removal of Manos from the ND. in 1998. “K” contacted Stefanos Manos for a discussion that was mainly focused on identifying differences between Konstantinos Karamanlis and Kostas Karamanlis. “I exercised executive power with Konstantinos Karamanlis, we were in the government, I had to implement the project. And Karamanlis never stood in the way of what I was doing. He has always been supportive. Most characteristic was that we agreed on the territorial policy of Greece (which was later abandoned at the Rally). With Kostas Karamanlis, we were in opposition. Unfortunately, he was not so much interested in what we wanted to do as how it would look. He was most interested in how the public would react to what we were about to do. Kostas Karamanlis avoided expressing his own opinion. He listened without giving his opinion. Konstantinos Karamanlis, on the other hand, knew exactly what he wanted.”

Manos says that the younger Karamanlis avoided taking into account objective facts. “He was not interested in reality. You heard a lot of nice words, but he acted regardless of reality, unlike Konstantinos Karamanlis, who did not tolerate what was not real. He wanted exact answers. Costas, on the other hand, was not interested in accuracy. Nor was he observant. For example, he could drive from Rafina to Athens and not notice that the trees had dried up along the way. Konstantinos Karamanlis, on the contrary, observed everything and, as soon as he noticed errors or problems, he immediately gave instructions on how to correct or eliminate them.”

Konstantinos Karamanlis chose the best of the place, while Kostas Karamanlis tossed out everything competitive.

The former minister admits that seriousness is one of the positive qualities of Kostas Karamanlis. “He is a serious person. He always had a weighty presentation. He is characterized by strictness of speech and decency, no doubt. There is no one in today’s parliament who would have the same oratory skills as Kostas Karamanlis. So he definitely stands out. And if we assume, that by leaving he wants to give a message about wiretapping, assuming that he knows something that I do not know, and this I consider him a plus. ” However, Manos insists that Karamanlis did not take advantage of the opportunities and opportunities that he had. “In He was elected by a landslide in 2004. It was a moment of uplift for the Greek people and you thought Karamanlis could do anything.I say he failed in comparing what he did with what he could have done. Unlike Konstantinos Karamanlis, who in 1974 took over a chaotic situation and sterilized the country, Kostas Karamanlis took on a very good situation that was slipping away.” o remains from the period of Kostas Karamanlis. “The years go by and you wonder: what is left?”. Several people say that Bucharest’s veto was retained at the NATO meeting to prevent Macedonia from joining without a decision on nomenclature. Fortunately, however, Tsipras lifted this veto from the agreement he made with Prespes.”

Manos also accuses Kostas Karamanlis of embezzlement in the public sector due to reckless hiring and permanent appointments, as well as going into Greek-Turkish. “He destroyed the Helsinki agreement and it hurt us.” In late 2004, Karamanlis lifted a veto on Turkey’s EU accession talks, having previously failed to refer the Greek-Turkish Aegean continental shelf dispute to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, as stipulated in the 1999 Helsinki Agreement. things will go well with Turkey, but Karamanlis did not dare to admit that some court, in this case the Hague, will not give us everything. And again this false image of reality prevailed. We live with this false notion that we own everything and therefore we are constantly in danger of losing it all. Our characteristic is the denial of reality.”

After all, what is left of the period 2004-2009? “It’s hard for me to say something good. There is, of course, the memory of the success of the Olympic Games. The games were held under Karamanlis, but not thanks to Karamanlis. They were associated with Gianna Angelopoulou, whom Karamanlis later forgot about. Instead of singling out Angelopula, instead of using her, he left her aside. Konstantinos Karamanlis did the opposite. He chose the best place, and Kostas Karamanlis discarded everything competitive.”