The President of the Republic greeting the President of POMIDA and the International Union Mr. Strato Paradia and the members present from all over Greece and abroad, stated the following:
“For another year I welcome you to the Presidency of the Republic as an Association of persons, which defends – as I have repeatedly reminded – one of the most fundamental Rights of Man, i.e. the Right to Property.
- First of all I must make the following remarks regarding the Right to Property.
A. First, the Right to Property is guaranteed not only by the Constitution, but also by International and European Law, and in fact multiple.
B. Secondly, the Right to Property, as it follows from its above-mentioned institutional bases, obviously exceeds , the framework of a stricto sensu individual right and acquires a mixed content, as a means of everyone’s participation in social and economic life. So, as a means of developing his personality in globo.
C. And, thirdly, under the above circumstances, the Right to Property is one of the pillars, literally, of Representative Democracy and the Free Market Economy.
- All this advocates for the conclusion of the following, crucial, conclusions:
A. When the Right to Property is weakened, in whatever way this occurs, and further when its very core is affected, there is a corresponding weakening of the pillars of both Representative Democracy and Free Market Economy.
B. Samples of this weakening, especially corrosive ones, include e.g. the widening of inequalities, the dysfunction of the rules of free and healthy competition and the ossification of the Social State of Law, therefore of Social Justice.
C. In addition to the other negative effects, this deconstruction of the Right to Property should also concern us with regard to the causes in general, which favor, in almost all the countries of the European Union,the birth of forms of populism /strong>which advise, directly, the European Building. And this reflection becomes much more imperative in view of the upcoming European elections, during which the future of European Unification and European Integration will be judged.
With these thoughts I welcome you and I congratulate you on the consistency with which you strive for the fulfillment of the purposes of your Union. I also congratulate you for the excellent cooperation with the other related Associations, both within the European Union and internationally.”
