Samaras repeats call for coalition to back down
New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras on Friday repeated his call for “national understanding” to carry Greece through this turbulent period due to difficulties in the government’s negotiations with the institutions.
“The games and the lies are over,” said the ex-prime minister. “The time for everyone to show responsibility has arrived. We have already proposed that there should be a national understanding. The government has no other way out, the country has no other road.”
Samaras had made a similar call a week earlier, explaining in Parliament that a “national understanding” would be based around Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras admitting that he had made groundless pledges before being elected, a change in government policy and the removal of the ministers who are behind these policies.
New Democracy sources insisted on Friday that the party does not envisage this proposal as a way of the conservatives joining the government at this stage.
The conservatives are particularly concerned about the precarious state of the coalition’s talks with creditors. “Not signing an agreement means default,” said ND’s parliamentary spokesman Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “There will be an immediate banking crisis, which will cause the complete paralysis of the economy and I am not sure the government will even have the money to pay pensions and salaries.”
