Samaras government “on its way out’, SYRIZA leader Tsipras says

20:11 18/2/2014 - Πηγή: Matrix24

The present government led by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is «on its way out,» main opposition Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) leader Alexis Tsipras asserted in an address read out at the Economist conference in Thessaloniki on Tuesday.

The main opposition leader,

who said that he was unable to attend the conference in person «due to circumstances beyond his control,» claimed that the present government lacked the political legitimacy to bind the country to a new memorandum agreement and should seek to renew the popular mandate.

«The Samaras-Venizelos government, which is exercising the EU presidency as the appointee of [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, is asked by its partners to commit the country to a third, successive austerity memorandum. The Samaras government is on its way out and does not have the political legitimacy to commit the people and the country to a new memorandum, independent of its name. It must set the choices and the commitments before the judgement of the Greek people,» he said.

Tsipras said that the conference was taking place at time that was crucial for both Greece and Europe, with the latter now at a strategic dead-end as austerity policies destroyed not just democracy and social cohesion but also Europe’s future.

He said the May European Parliament elections were perhaps the most crucial in the EU’s history, creating new political correlations for dealing with the crisis.

«In the Euro-elections in May, through the vote of its citizens, Europe must emerge – and it will emerge – from the long night of neoliberalism and austerity. It must emerge once more into the light of democracy,» Tsipras stressed.

source: ΑΜΝΑ