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Recently, Greek political life has been under the sign of the Siemens scandal. After an investigation which lasted months the Parliamentary Control Committee issued its long awaited report recommending a Commission for preliminary investigation to be established. The parties’ agreement ended there as each of them has a different position on the culprits who took money from the German company.

The Greek society has witnessed a game of shifting responsibilities between the two major parties PASOK and New Democracy. The already confirmed rumours of bargaining in relation to the names of which former ministers from the governments in the past 15 years will be included in the report evoked negative attitude. In an attempt to change the impressions caused by the ‘shopping’ arrangements between members of the Supervisory Committee the State Minister Haris Pampoukis sent a letter to the Executive Director of Siemens Hellas Panagiotis Ksinis which will be also submitted to the company's headquarters in Munich.

In his letter the Minister informed the administration of the company that Greece intended to bring to trial the German giant in connection with bearing the responsibility for illegal activities of the company in Greece.

As Haris Pampoukis wrote that the Greek state would seek any available means to remove the direct damage caused by the corrupt practices the company had applied in the past. Obviously, the affected companies’ administrations were expected to take the same measures prescribed by law. The clarification of the matter was a prerequisite to trace the circumstances of fines, particularly for breach of the obligation for transparency and observance of fair competition as had happened in other "involved" parties concerning the fair and impartial assessment of the competent state authorities.

According to the State Minister Haris Pampoukis, "the German company is commercially interested to respond to the Greek claims and to help search for the truth." He stressed in an interview for Radio Vima 99.5 that Greece was a historical market for the company that was interested to restore its reputation.

Haris Pampoukis said that it was a "global scandal" some features of which affect Greece. He also said that the truth must be found regardless of the limitation period because "people have to know it."

The Minister stressed that great legal abilities to fight an organized international crime were needed but justice would have to contribute to the clarification of the case as far as possible.

According to him, the "black money" traffic was very fast and that’s why it was difficult to establish the amounts, but that did not mean that the state should stop searching.

Haris Pampoukis also noted that the assistance of other countries was needed in such cases. As for the funds of the Greek parties, for which there was information that they had received money from Siemens, the government minister called for publication of data but at the same time stressed that "the truth is more complicated."

In conclusion, the State Minister said that the Greek government should create mechanisms to prevent future cases similar to the Siemens’ one.

The government considers through the letter of the State Minister that it has passed the reef of the question "Why the state did not sue Siemens?" but two more remain: "Why party funds were not investigated?" and "What sense did the investigation by the Parliamentary Committee make given that it was discredited within months?"