Tsipras says Greece in political as well as debt crisis
Greece is not only experiencing a debt crisis but a political one too, the leader of the main leftist opposition SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, said on Tuesday during a speech at a conference in Athens organized by The Economist, noting that his party was determined to rescue the country within the eurozone.
“In the eurozone, if we don’t want to change currencies, we must change policies,» Tsipras said, noting that the «failed memorandums of disastrous austerity» must be abandoned if the country is to recover. The austerity policies implemented by successive governments over the past three years have yet to yield any «success stories,» the leftist leader continued.
He added that if European leaders insist on enforcing austerity, this would provoke «an explosion in the lower echelons of society.»
SYRIZA’s alternative proposal is a «national plan for growth,» Tsipras said, adding that his party’s aim was not to return to 2009. SYRIZA’s first steps in power would be to revoke cuts to the minimum wage to the «pre-memorandum era,» he said.
Earlier in the day, in a question submitted in Parliament for Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Tsipras maintained that the operation of state privatization fund TAIPED violates a series of constitutional provisions.
