“The invisible tax of corruption deprives social policy of resources” and “if I am prime minister during the Greek presidency (of the European Union), I will emphasize the need to increase spending on social cohesion by taxing large multinationals and carbon emissions.”
Alexis Tsipras articulated this position, among others, in an interview with POLITICO, also calling on the government “to stop giving the U.S. a blank check on foreign policy.”
Regarding defense spending, he emphasized that if only defense spending increases while spending on social cohesion does not, “in a few years, the EU will have better defense but far-right governments.”
He added that “every euro lost to direct awards and embezzlement of European funds is a euro lost from hospitals and schools.”
Excerpts from the interview with POLITICO as presented by the “Alexis Tsipras Institute”:
The former prime minister and president of ELAS states that Greece must “cool off” its overly close relationship with the MAGA movement.
Describing his agenda ahead of the general elections expected by next spring, he criticized the current conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for making excessive concessions to the United States.
He contrasted him with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who ruled out the use of Spanish military bases by U.S. forces
While much of Europe is distancing itself from the MAGA movement, Greece is further strengthening its relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Mitsotakis government has granted the United States indefinite access to critical military bases throughout the country — including the main naval base in Crete — rather than providing for regular renewal of the agreement through renegotiation of the terms.
Alexis Tsipras believes that Kyriakos Mitsotakis has crossed the line.
“Greek-American relations are strategic in nature and must be governed by the principle of mutual benefit,” he said. “The government is pursuing a ‘blank check’ policy, and this does not serve our national interests.”
Tsipras, 51, argued that the priority in the use of military bases should be the security of Greece itself, rather than simply meeting U.S. demands.
“This issue came to the fore with particular intensity during the recent war in Iran. We saw what the reaction of the Greek prime minister was and what that of the Spanish prime minister was.”
His campaign stance that Greece should maintain greater distance from Washington appears to be aimed at expressing the widespread distrust among the Greek public toward Donald Trump. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in late June, only 22% of Greeks who participated in the survey said they trust the U.S. president to handle international affairs.
Mr. Tsipras, who lost power in 2019, became internationally known as the leader of SYRIZA, the radical party that clashed with Brussels and Berlin in successive rounds of tough negotiations, at the height of the eurozone debt crisis.
In May, he founded a new political party called EL.A.S., with the aim of uniting the fragmented opposition against Mitsotakis’s New Democracy. It has already emerged as the second-largest political force in Greece, although it still trails significantly behind the prime minister. According to POLITICO’s aggregated poll analysis (Poll of Polls), New Democracy stands at 30% and ELAS at 17%.
The elections are expected to take place before Greece assumes the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in July 2027.
If he is prime minister during this presidency, Alexis Tsipras has stated that he will prioritize spending on cohesion policy, with the aim of reducing economic disparities among the regions of the European Union, while leaving open the possibility of imposing higher taxes on large corporations.
“Social cohesion must be strengthened, and the European Union’s own resources must be increased. This means there must be the political will to tax multinational corporations, as well as carbon emissions,” he said.
Given the threats to Europe’s security, Alexis Tsipras agreed that investment in defense must increase, but not at the expense of social spending.
“If that happens, in a few years we will find ourselves with a European Union that is stronger defensively but governed by far-right governments.”
The “corruption tax” in Greece
Tsipras continues to face the major challenge that Kyriakos Mitsotakis remains firmly in first place in the polls.
Despite the fact that a series of major scandals have rocked the country—including the government’s problematic handling of the deadly train crash in Greece and the widespread fraud involving European agricultural funds—the government has maintained its lead, partly thanks to the deep fragmentation of the opposition.
Alexis Tsipras argues that this is precisely why he created his new political movement. “The picture isn’t positive for the government,” he says, “but it’s rather negative for the opposition, and that’s why EL.A.S. was created.”
He emphasized, in fact, that citizens’ outrage over corruption should ultimately lead to political change.
He cited polls showing that about 70% of Greeks want political change, about 90% believe corruption is widespread, and about 55% say they were better off in 2019 than they are today.
He noted that Greek households have faced a “double blow” over the past seven years: the high cost of living and widespread corruption.
Annual inflation in Greece stood at 5.2% in May 2026, exceeding the eurozone average of 3.2%. According to the 2026 UBS Global Wealth Report, wealth inequality has increased, as fewer and fewer people are benefiting from the growth in total wealth.
Although total net wealth has been rising steadily since 2020, the gap between the wealthy and the general population continues to widen.
“We have the invisible tax of corruption—and I call it a tax because I believe that the cost of the widespread and unprecedented levels of corruption in Greece is so great that it deprives social policy of resources,” said Alexis Tsipras.
“Every euro lost through direct awards in public tenders and through the embezzlement of European funds is a euro missing from public schools, teachers’ salaries, public hospitals, and nurses’ wages,” he added.
When asked about the political consequences of his reputation as a radical and unpredictable politician from the period of the eurozone crisis, Tsipras replied that many remember his administration only for the first six turbulent months, when Athens was on the brink of exiting the eurozone.
He, however, presented himself as the government leader who ultimately managed to stabilize the situation.
“There is an effort to focus the discussion solely on the first six months of our administration, from January to July 2015. But there is also the period before and after. The country did not enter the crisis because of our own policies… We reached a difficult agreement, amid conflicts and tensions, but we put an end to the memoranda, restored the economy’s credibility, and achieved positive growth rates.”