PM tries to steer steady course

No reshuffle, early elections or new taxes, says Karamanlis as he defends ministers over ‘inappropriate behavior’

V. VERVERIDIS/MOTION TEAM

Unionists hold placards depicting Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis as Marie Antoinette ahead of his speech in Thessaloniki on Saturday. Some 10,000 people demonstrated against the government. Police said that 13 people were arrested after clashes involving self-styled anarchists.

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis yesterday ruled out the possibility of a Cabinet reshuffle or early elections after trying to convince voters in his speech at the Thessaloniki International Fair (TIF) that his government is coping with the impacts of the international economic crisis.

Speaking just hours after the prime minister’s annual speech at TIF, Karamanlis sought to quell speculation that he would seek to drag his government out of its apparent stupor by changing some of his ministers or heading for the polls. “There is no such issue,” said Karamanlis. “Any thoughts about a recourse to early elections bears no relation to reality.”

In fact, the prime minister used yesterday’s press conference to defend his ministers and to suggest that the internal dissent within his party was not as damaging as some people think.

“There are no cases of inappropriate behavior,” Karamanlis said after being asked about Merchant Marine Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis who, it was revealed last week, had set up several real estate firms with his wife and had appointed the manager of one of these companies as head of the Seamen’s Pension Fund (NAT). “Accusations cannot have any validity until they are investigated by justice,” he added.

The premier said also that he was committed to holding a parliamentary inquiry into the Siemens bribery scandal once the judicial probe had been completed. He said that his party had nothing to fear from the investigations.

Karamanlis also broached the subject of the unpopular tax measures announced last week, which will see self-employed professionals paying more tax.

“Nobody is pleased about new tax measures but there are cases when the state must introduce them, in the fairest way possible,” he said, reiterating the assertion that many self-employed people are declaring much less than they actually earn.

The prime minister said that his government has “no intention” of creating more taxes and he denied that there is a possibility that VAT will increase.

During his speech, Karamanlis said that his government was trying its best to steer Greece through the turbulence cased by an unstable international economy. He highlighted two of his goals as being the restructuring of Olympic Airlines and the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), which he said are costing Greek taxpayers 2.7 million euros a day.

Karamanlis said that the only constructive criticism that someone could aim at him was that he had not proceeded with reforms “quickly and boldly enough.”

The behavior of the government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia does not make Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis particularly optimistic that a solution to the name dispute is in sight, he admitted yesterday.

“The behavior and the comments by the Skopje government at the present time give me little cause for optimism,” he told journalists. “I do not see a change of position, not even the desire to find a common solution.”

Karamanlis allayed fears that the crisis in Georgia would harm Greece’s participation in gas pipeline projects with Russia and Azerbaijan. He said Greece had adopted the EU position in condemning the use of violence for resolving disputes but that the country’s “energy issue” was a separate matter.

Speaking to Sunday’s Kathimerini, senior State Department official Matthew Bryza urged EU countries to avoid doing business with Russia in the wake of its conflict with Georgia.