Kammenos and SYRIZA exchange barbs
An acrimonious public conflict has broken out between erstwhile allies SYRIZA and the former leader of the nationalist ANEL party, Panos Kammenos, who were partners in government between 2015 and 2019.
After former leader of the leftist party Alexis Tsipras had described the coalition with ANEL party as a “necessary evil,” Kammenos snapped back in an interview with ANT1, referring to the negotiations with Greece’s lenders at the height of the financial crisis and the Prespes name agreement with North Macedonia.
He claimed that the finance minister at the time, Yanis Varoufakis, had accepted a proposal in 2015 by then-Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany for the exit of Greece from the eurozone, in exchange for an 80-billion-euro bailout and for Greece to accept 2.5 million migrants on the islands. “The transformation of Greece into a prison of 2.5 million people on the islands,” he said.
According to Kammenos, he met with Tsipras and Varoufakis in Brussels before the crucial Eurogroup meeting. “Varoufakis’ proposal was to accept the proposal of Germany the next day,” he said.
Referring to the Prespes name agreement, Kammenos said that SYRIZA broke an agreement with its junior coalition partner ANEL not to open the issue. He denounced that “the Prespes Agreement was a trap set for Tsipras by the Germans with the Nobel Peace Prize as a gift.”
SYRIZA dismissed Kammenos’ allegation, saying he “has the right to present himself as an infallible protagonist and blame others.”
“What he does not have the right to do is to construct science-fiction scenarios. To distort the events of yesterday to serve whatever agenda he has today. To invoke his own fabrications as facts. And finally to show no basic respect for the truth about the most difficult historical period of Greece during the post-dictatorship era,” the party said.
