The Solidarity Movement honored yesterday afternoon the former director of the Fire Service, Mr. Marco Tragola, for everything he has offered to the Fire Brigade, the cohesion of the society and the civil defense of this place, always showing selfless behavior.
The President of the Solidarity Movement, Dr. Eleni Theocharous, explaining the rationale of the event, noted: "This is a man who has deep-rooted values for devotion to the homeland and society, self-denial for the performance of duty. As a civil servant he did not count overtime because he knows that for a good employee and citizen of this country there are no working hours. We live in a state that does not have the services developed to the extent that it should for the citizen to feel safe, and yet he feels safe because we have our people. One of them is Markos Tragolas ".
In her greeting, Ms. Theocharous recalled her proposal to the EU to establish a European fire brigade based in Cyprus, which will cover the entire southern part of Europe. This proposal was accepted by the Commission in 2018 and so its creation is imminent.
For his part, Mr. Markos Tragolas thanked the Solidarity Movement, said that "small parties have a great soul", and stressed that Cyprus is the only country in the EU. where there is no Institution for Civil Protection. He said in particular that "the EU calls on the Member States to set up a body to manage disasters, whether natural, technological or man-made. To plan, to coordinate, to test, to activate, to issue announcements, to advise the citizen. We are missing this thing in Cyprus. "Unfortunately we are slow to get the messages, and we get them when something bad happens."
According to Mr. Tragola, three times as much is spent in Cyprus for the purchases and the upgrade of the armament mechanism of the relevant services than for the prevention. "Only 20-30% of the expenses are related to prevention and the whole point is prevention," he said, adding: "If the self-denial of the employees of the Fire Brigade, the Forest Department and the Ambulance Service were lacking, then we would mourn many more victims."
The Solidarity Movement honored the former Director of the Fire Service by symbolically giving him a boat from Kyrenia with the inscription "May your horizons always be open for your return", in Famagusta and throughout our occupied land.