The present paper cannot be considered, either as a rebuttal to any participant, or our overview of the debate. Its publication became necessary due to the fact that various participants raised additional questions, i.e., beyond the points suggested by Varotsos et al. [1996>. We clarify these questions that concern the noise discrimination from our electrical recordings, the recent laboratory experiments which support the emission of electrical precursors, and the question on whether, or not, a retroactive adjustment of the VAN prediction parameters was made, after the period 1987--1989 discussed in this debate. We draw attention to the fact that a continuous 9 year (i.e., 1987--1995) sample of VAN predictions is now available. For the benefit of the reader, the present paper also summarizes the essence of the five Principles suggested by Varotsos et al. [1996> (as a consequence, attention is drawn to a correct definition of the success rate). This essence remains exactly the same as it was initially suggested, because we do not feel, after the debate, that the various contributions cast a sound doubt on the correctness of any of these Principles. The calculations which claim that VAN predictions can be ascribed to chance strongly violate these Principles; the incorrectness of these calculations is beyond any doubt, because they ''reject'' even an ideal earthquake prediction method. On the other hand, several well founded calculations convince that the VAN's success (and alarm) rate is very far beyond chance. The study of this paper is highly recommended to the reader before going through the details of each of our individual Replies. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1996