With the former Minister of Finance Haris Georgiadis, the open hearings of the Research Committee for the exceptional naturalizations begin today.
The hearing, which will take place in the presence of 15 journalists, is scheduled to begin at 12:00 and will take place on the ground floor of the former Hotel "Filoxenia" in the room "Jean Monnet".
The Commission stated that "from the beginning, it wanted to hold open hearings but unfortunately due to the restrictions in force due to the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic but also due to technical constraints it was not possible from the beginning" and that it paid It is still making efforts to enable the media to access the hearings through the use of technology, but due to the lack of infrastructure and the necessary systems it has not yet been possible.
"Consequently, the Commission has decided unanimously that, for the sake of transparency, it should allow the presence of the media by applying the protocols of the Ministry of Health, since at present the removal of the technical restrictions mentioned above has been achieved," he said.
Following are statements by the President and the Archbishop
The Commission announced that at a later stage hearings will be scheduled at which the President of the Republic Nikos Anastasiadis and the Primate of the Church of Cyprus, Chrysostomos II will testify.
Based on the list that has been made public, so far ten state officials have testified before the committee. They are the Minister of Interior Nikos Nouris, the Minister of Finance Konstantinos Petridis, the Auditor General Odysseas Michailidis, the head of the Cyprus Investment Program Unit at the Ministry of Interior, Christina Kaoula, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Socratikos Socrates Neos Theodosi Tsiola and the former secretaries of the Ministry, George Georgiou and Andeas Moleski.
At the same time, according to the Commission, so far a significant number of exceptional cases of naturalization of foreign investors and entrepreneurs have been examined, while the sending of additional files by the Ministry of Interior continues.
In addition, it is reported that journalists covering the work of the Commission are bound by national and EU legislation on the protection of personal data.
It is recalled that the Investigative Committee of the Exceptional Naturalization of Foreign Investors and Entrepreneurs was established following decrees of the Attorney General of the Republic, dated 07.09.2020, 14.10.2020, 27.11.2020 and 1.12.2020.