Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Antonis Samaras warned that the Pasok government is a ‘captive’ of its own mistaken policy and unable to attain its targets, and reiterated his call for early general elections, during the customary press conference at the 76th Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) on Sunday.
Samaras spoke of “tax-enthusiasts” in the government that have “broken all records” in the economy, given that “there is no book on the economy in any country that says that in times of recession you increase the taxes”.
“Last year, they didn’t believe me. This year, don’t they see the results?” he asked, referring to the government.
“Do they want to save Greece with the Greeks, or the economy without the Greeks?” Samaras asked, putting the question to the government and to government vice president and finance minister Evangelos Venizelos.
Samaras pointed out that wherever the government raised the taxes over the past seven months, the revenues have fallen against the corresponding period last year, and cited as an example statistics showing that revenues from vehicle circulation fees have slumped by 80 percent and revenues from fuel have fallen by 20 percent.
Asked why he was not collaborating with prime minister George Papandreou, with the two of them going to Brussels together for renegotiation with the country’s EU partners, Samaras explained: “It is not a matter of faces. It is a political matter. They (government) have a different way of exercising policy, and (ruling) Pasok is muddled because it is in the midst of an existential crisis”.
The only solution under the present circumstances is elections, the ND leader reiterated, and called for “clean solutions, with elections and a strong popular mandate”.
He ruled out the prospect of co-governance with Pasok, adding that he couldn’t care less if Papandreou wants co-governance for “a different reason” in order to fall softly.
“I will not burn the country’s biggest weapon, which at this time is clean solutions and elections,” he said.
Samaras further said that he has been vindicated in the predictions he had made, but does not feel pleased when the citizens tell him so.
The ND leader further reiterated his call for renegotiation of the Memorandum, stressing that ‘renegotiation of the Memorandum means jump-starting the Greek economy”, but noted that in order to achieve that certain prerequisites were needed.
“The programme you are implementing has problems, there needs to be a Plan B and a clear mandate from the people which the stronger that is, the stronger will also be the one who goes to renegotiate”.
He further rejected a Greek exit from the eurozone, citing a bank report that the cost of Greece’s exit from the eurozone would be much greater than the cost of salvaging the country.
On a second bailout package for Greece, Samaras stressed that “if the new Memorandum is on the right track, I have no problem about voting in favor of it”, but “if it is on the same rationale (as the current Memorandum) I will vote against it”.
Samaras also pledged that when his party takes over the government it will set up a parliamentary probe committee to investigate how the country reached the Memorandum “so that the people will learn the truth about how the (preceding) ND government turned over the Greek spread at 130 basis points and today the spread has exceeded 2,000 basis points”.
(source: ana-mpa)
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