Brussels, 04/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - In a press release published on Monday, Mihail Papayannakis (GUE/SYN, Greece) attacked the attitude of the Greek Minister for Defence, who refused to grant exceptional entrance to the country for someone whose military service obligations are still pending and who had been invited to attend the European Parliament's petitions meeting at the EP information bureau in Athens. The person in question, like most of the 20, 000 Greek citizens with pending military service, is living abroad (in the United Kingdom) and could be taken into custody on his arrival in the country of his origin. Greek law, however, accords exceptional entrance into the country for an undetermined length of time in cases of "serious and extraordinary individual or family reasons", which is routinely granted to football and basketball players who face similar problems. In a petition addressed to the European Parliament, the Greek citizen faced a number of discriminatory problems lined to the very restrictive conditions in which he was attempting to obtain a specific status for permanent residents (need to have left Greek territory before the age of eleven) and the existence of a bilateral agreement between Greece and Germany, that gives more favourable treatment to those of dual-nationality residing in Germany to the detriment of those of other European Union Member States. Mr Papayannakis wrote to the Chairman of the petitions Committee, Vitaliano Gemelli (EPP-ED, Italy), asking him to intervene via the Greek authorities to ensure that this kind of incident was not repeated in the future.