Al. Tsipras: Prime Minister’s lack of seriousness and responsibility – Political change is necessary

The need for political change, so that Greece can find its pace and face modern challenges, was underlined by the president of SYRIZA-PS, Alexis Tsipras, speaking at the Economist conference, while he launched an attack on Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, accusing him of “a lack of seriousness and responsibility”.

Alexis Tsipras argued that, while in crisis conditions like today’s, political power needs a plan, seriousness, awareness of the need to protect social cohesion and society’s trust in the political system, “unfortunately, the government invests in populism, division, and the undermining of institutions”.

As an example, he cited “Mr. Mitsotakis’ game with the top event of democracy, the elections. The prime minister opened the process of early elections all the time himself. With statements, with the announcement of his party’s candidates, with leaks to government-friendly Media on the dates of the elections, calling on ministers and MPs to throw themselves into the battle of their election. Yesterday in the Parliament with half words, and today in his interview more clearly, he discovered and announced to us that all that he himself promoted and prepared until yesterday, that is, early elections are not a nationally responsible choice. I wonder if there is even one citizen who believes that this way, with such a lack of seriousness and responsibility, the excess of multiple crises can be dealt with.”

Continuing, Mr. Tsipras underlined that in order to deal with this context of multiple crises, a change of economic and political model is needed and he added: “The country needs a government that believes in the interventionist and regulatory role of the state. And not a government that considers it a sin to regulate markets and intervene in the public interest. We need a government with the political will to clash with vested interests, if necessary, to regulate oligopolistic sectors of the economy. A government that will strengthen regulators, that will strengthen participation in public interest enterprises such as PPC, defining an appropriate management structure with a clear political mandate to hold down prices”.

Subsequently, he submitted his own proposal for dealing with energy precision: “Suspension of the energy exchange. Ceiling on the wholesale and retail price of electricity. Reduction of the EFC to the lowest European limits. These are immediate intervention actions to stop the phenomenon”.

He criticized the government for the privatization of PPC: “The nationalization of the French EDF, which was announced yesterday, shows a trend that is completely foreign to practices like the Greek government, which during the energy crisis chose to privatize PPC, depriving the state of the basic tool for managing the energy crisis”.

Mr Tsipras looked back on his government tenure on the way he dealt with the Greek debt issue and the Macedonian issue “as examples of what I mean by planning and strategy with an eye on the future”.

He said that in 2015 in Greece, “the failed government left us with empty coffers, essentially out of program (without closing the fifth assessment) and with about 21 billion in debt payments within the year. In 2019 the new government had, among other advantages, the liquidity cushion and regulated debt. At a conservative calculation, this is about 75% of our total debt over an average of 20 years (that’s what the rating agencies and investors estimate). If we have a horizon of the next 5- 7 years, this rises to over 90% of debt.Funding needs up to 2033 range from 5bn a year in the good years to 8/9bn in the worst – a figure that barely changes and in any case well below the 21bn that we had to pay with the cashiers leave, in 2015”. Thanks to this arrangement, Mr. Tsipras said, “even the fear in the Eurozone about the fragmentation of government bonds (high interest rates for the South, low for the North), which the ECB is trying to deal with, does not particularly affect our country.

With the right policies, he continued, “the large volume of Greek debt can be kept, but the debt/GDP ratio can be reduced through growth. This means a clear path for growth.”

He then referred to the Prespa Agreement: “…We took a historic decision for peace and cooperation, which today, four years later and with the war raging on European soil, its importance emerges even more. We knew the political cost, we knew the orgy of mud and slander to which our political opponent and the extreme right associated with him can reach, but it was very important to protect the interests of the country and to restore its role as a pillar of security and stability in the region”.

The president of SYRIZA referred to the international crisis aggravated by the war in Ukraine criticizing the European leadership: “So we are at a very critical point for Europe. This difficult situation has come to be burdened by the practice of without measure and clear objectives of sanctions against Russia, at a time when our entire continent is energy dependent on Russian gas reserves. Sanctions, which are supposed to pressure and punish the aggressor, but in the end end up hurting the one who enacts them. But instead of simultaneously exhausting all diplomatic leeway, aiming at peace and security, we have accepted a logic of indefinitely participating in a war by financial means, shooting ourselves in the foot, according to a well-placed observation.”

He then underlined that it is necessary “to urgently turn the wheel in another direction: First of all for the most urgent, i.e. ending the war and limiting the consequences of the energy crisis. But also for tomorrow, i.e. the fortification against a new fiscal crisis, restoring energy security, accelerating the just green transition, expanding resources and policies that strengthen social cohesion”.

Continuing, he said that one axis that the EU should move is initiatives of an active and effective European strategy, the other, should be the one that extends to the emergency measures to stop stagflation and energy poverty and explained: “By reforming the operating framework of the energy exchange, by establishing a ceiling on producers’ surplus profits, by extending the escape clause, by revising the Stability Pact and extending the scope and duration of the Recovery and Resilience Fund. The European Union must here and now take decisions for a solidarity response to the energy crisis and not leave individual states at its mercy”.

SOURCE: AMPE