House speaker and SYRIZA in attack on Bank of Greece governor
Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras came under attack on Wednesday from Parliament Speaker Zoe Constantopoulou and her SYRIZA colleagues after the central bank issued in one of its regular reports a warning regarding the consequences of the government failing to reach an agreement with its lenders.
The report warned that Greece could tumble out of the euro area and even the European Union as a result of a default, which prompted SYRIZA to accuse Stournaras of “not only going beyond the boundaries of his institutional role but trying to contribute to the creation of a restrictive framework around the government’s negotiating possibilities.”
Constantopoulou went as far as rejecting the report because it had been sent on a memory stick and not in printed format. The document arrived ahead of Parliament’s debt audit committee – which is being presided over by Constantopoulou – delivering its preliminary findings.
The parliamentary speaker claimed that the Bank of Greece’s report was an “undemocratic” attempt to “create a fait accompli and to prevent a challenge for debt relief.” The Debt Truth Committee’s initial report claimed that much of Greece’s debt should not be paid.
“All the evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first and foremost because the debt emerging from the troika’s arrangements is a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of Greece,” said the authors’ report.
“Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this debt because it is illegal, illegitimate and odious.”
