Opinion
. ..It is no less vain to hurl stones at the sky than to accuse Socialist deputies Theodoros Pangalos and Yiannis Kapsis of voting for the bill on coastal development. Only five days earlier they had compared the bill to Attila and bin Laden respectively, but then – along with other deputies who turned from fierce critics into warm advocates of the bill – they decided that the latest amendments had turned Attila into a wolf cub and bin Laden into a cub scout. And how can one take comfort in the dissenting absence from Parliament during the crucial ballot of several deputies who, unfortunately, found no other, more substantial way of displaying their opposition than staying at home, allowing everyone to interpret their stance as it most suited them. After this bill, our beaches and coasts will be surrendered to the national interest, which means to everyone who happens to have inherited them. And the environmentalists’ threats to release the names of those who voted for the bill will have no effect whatsoever. Who can claim that we elect our parliamentary representatives or the local authorities on the basis of their environmental concerns? Our representatives are in our own image; they resemble us and we them. This is why none of them have been punished no matter how inconsistent they may have been, no matter if their rhetoric has proved nothing more but empty words. These excuses are, of course, no more than pretexts. Regardless of Laliotis and the attempt to make an impression on the EU, the fact is that Papandreou is reviewing all of Laliotis’s major decisions. It seems that Papandreou is taking into account her party conflict with Laliotis but also the fact that his basic ministerial policies are so flawed that she will have to shoulder the burden of a potential failure or lack of transparency. The prime minister himself should have diagnosed and corrected this problem long ago, rather than rewarding Laliotis with an exit from the government through what was portrayed as a political promotion.
