Samaras: government is 'desperate and dangerous' - The Best from Greece

Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Antonis Samaras has warned that the Pasok government was "desperate and dangerous" and pledged that an ND government would do everything necessary to attain Greece's fiscal targets.

 

Addressing a meeting of the ND parliamentary group on Wednesday, Samaras said his party would achieve this with a different policy, one that would give hope and prospects to the country.

 

Samaras also made a scathing personal attack on the prime minister, asking of George Papandreou whether his ultimate goal was “to break up Greece".

 

The main opposition leader accused Papandreou of "putting Greece at the centre of a global storm, for his own personal interests", and warned that ND's battle, both inside and outside Greece, will be "unyielding and unifying".

 

He described the vote of confidence requested by Papandreou, which will take place at midnight Friday after a three-day debate that begins Wednesday afternoon, as a "cry of agony from a prime minister who has lost every legitimacy in the society".

 

Samaras also referred to the referendum called by the premier as a "parody", proof of the "ultimate impasse" Papandreou faces and an exposure of his government’s "extreme irresponsibility".

 

Samaras predicted that the new bailout loan agreement for Greece decided at the eurozone summit on October 26-27 would not be finalised until the referendum took place.

 

This, he added, would lead to turbulence on the markets and in Europe over the next two months.

 

"The government is coercing the people to approve the loan agreement and its incorrect policy simultaneously, and it runs the risk of the people rejecting the wrong policy and with it the loan agreement," Samaras said.

 

He added that if one wants to bring the country out of the impasse, he must separate the loan agreement from the accompanying policy and try to change that policy.

 

He also accused Papandreou of "blatant blackmail".

 

"Either you vote with a yes or a no on everything I am bringing to you, or take the responsibility of leaving Europe," he said.

 

"But when you blackmail the people, you are not asking them to take a position, you are forcing them and risk receiving the opposite response to what you expect," he added, warning that if the outcome of the referendum was "yes", then it would be very difficult to improve the agreement in the future.

 

He further added that had ND had voted in favour of the memorandum "we would now be implicated in Mr. Papandreou's opportunistic games".

 

That it did not endorse the programme now leaves it in a position to offer an alternative policy.

 

"We agreed on the positive aspects, but rejected the mistakes ... we did not promise the moon and the starts,” Samaras said.

 

“The only promises we made were for the low pension earners and the large families."

 

Samaras also spoke at length on the proposal he expressed earlier in the week on forcing elections, but did not elaborate on how this would be done.

 

"Elections would be delivery for the country, the economy and for Europe, which panicked with Mr Papandreou's antics, but also for many Pasok MPs who can't wait to see the day they will stop supporting this government," he added.

 

"Our duty is to pave the way for the genuine and safe referendum, which is elections," Samaras stressed.

"When we demand elections, we do so not only because there is disharmony between the people and the government or because nothing is functioning in public administration and the state, but because there are greater dangers behind this situation, from the collapsing economy with businesses closing one after the other up to the nonrecognition of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which is a self-evident right of the country."

 

Samaras also announced a series of trips inside and outside Europe to seek allies for a "different policy concerning the European south".

 

In closing, Samaras said that everyone was now expecting from ND "not allow Mr Papandreou to drag Greece with him over the precipice".

 

"We are a guarantor of stability and responsibility. We are entering a battle for this government to leave, to take our fates into our own hands once again, and to give hope and prospects to the young generation," he said. (AMNA)