MPs probe secrecy labels after presidential limousine document leak

A row over the leak of a classified document on a new presidential armoured limousine led MPs on the House institutions committee on Wednesday to examine how government departments mark documents as secret. The committee took up the issue on its own initiative after a proposal by Alma MP Irene Charalambides, who said it was prompted by media headlines about the car. The document detailing the planned purchase, which bore the House seal, reached the press in September after the House finance committee approved €590,000 for the vehicle behind closed doors. President Nikos Christodoulides claimed ignorance of the plan and accused unnamed parties in parliament of leaking the information to damage him politically. Deputy government spokesman Yiannis Antoniou said the focus should be on the fact that “classified documents sent to parliament are being made public”. Elam has written to House speaker Annita Demetriou asking for an investigation into the leak and for the matter to be reported to the police. Charalambides said the government “seals the questions we submit with a confidential label as it does not actually want transparency”. “The public interest is not being protected, but rather it is the government protecting itself,” she exclaimed. Alma intends to table a bill to curb what she called abuse of executive power, for instance, she said the simple protocol for treating addiction among minors had been classified as confidential. She also said ministers later speak publicly on material they had sent to parliament as confidential. Committee chairman and Disy MP Demetris Demetriou conceded that public trust in parliament was “lacking”, recalling that MPs had often asked for classified documents to be submitted for scrutiny and that the executive “stubbornly and consistently” refused. Legal service spokesperson Dena Theodorou said the service saw abuse in the documents it received. She attributed it to confusion between classified material and personal data protection and proposed a circular setting out the classification levels and the relevant articles of the decree. National security director Lieutenant Colonel Alexis Hadjiprokopis said anyone who leaked sensitive, classified information would be prosecuted. He said the new decree “explicitly defines who has the right to classify documents”. The authority, he said, does not carry out investigations, which are a matter for the police. Foreign ministry spokesman Demetris Demetriou acknowledged that there was “room for improvement” and that his ministry had begun training some time ago. George Christofides, representing the bar association, said the existing grading guide could prompt every ministry to retrain its staff. Diko MP Zacharias Koulias remarked that “it seems the whole civil service needed training” on the matter. Disy MP Michalis Fellas said the debate showed the need for a balance between protecting sensitive information and transparency. “No one disputes that issues of national security, defence and other sensitive information must be protected,” he said. Akel MP Konstantinos Konstantinou said protection should not become “a pretext for avoiding control or accountability”. “Over classification adds costs and slows the legitimate exchange of information”, he said. Christodoulides current limousine has been in service since 2019, replacing a vehicle that entered service in 2010, which the presidency still uses as a backup. The finance committee approved €590,000 for a new car on September 7, although Antoniou has spoken of an available fund of €595,000. He said this was not necessarily the final price and that a negotiation would follow. Cabinet approved the plan in July, at a meeting on July 16 chaired by the president. Elam MP Marios Pelekanos said the procedure was the one applied for many years and that the cost was “considered normal”. Akel MP Aristos Damianou said the need for an armoured car for the president was “self-evident”, while Alma leader Odysseas Michaelides argued that the maintenance costs of the current car and the backup did not justify replacing it so early.