“The opposition parties are playing the familiar game of outbidding. We will not take part in this game”, stressed the government spokesperson, Pavlos Marinakis, during the briefing of political editors, regarding the announcements by ELAS and PASOK on support measures for citizens due to the energy crisis.
The government's announcements, as he said, “will be made at the right time, which is the end of the implementation of the previous measures. The economic staff will then have the exact picture of the scale of the interventions that will need to be made and these measures will be able to correspond to the real situation. We do not adopt the logic of ‘give everything up front’. If we had followed these recommendations, today there would not be a cent to give to citizens in the coming months. Besides, aren’t all these things already being implemented measures of permanent income support? If some believe there is unlimited money, they are mistaken”.
Regarding a Wall Street Journal report, according to which the US ambassador said in front of minister Stavros Papastavrou that her country could bring down any government it wanted, even Greece’s, on the occasion of energy issues, the government spokesperson commented:
“I do not usually comment on reports, but I must say that the issue of a threat to the Greek government was never raised. And to be serious, nor would this ever be tolerated. The relations between the two countries are closer than ever. In energy, Greece is a strategic partner of the US. No political blackmail exists, Greece is growing at all levels, the signed agreements have a huge energy footprint and not only”.
Mr. Marinakis covered MPs Koulkoudina and Tsiaras for their statements since, as he said, “a few seconds were isolated from an interview,” while he kept his distance from Haris Theocharis who referred to “pitiful citizens.”
According to Mr. Marinakis, “I refer you to a series of formulations by the prime minister that we are the government of all Greeks, ND is a popular party, not a party of populists. Any statement outside this philosophy is obviously misguided. In any case, Mr. Theocharis realized the mistake in his wording, retracted, acknowledged it. When someone is exposed, they may say something they should not have, what matters is to realize it and retract it”.
At the same time, he noted that he is not aware of any redesign regarding the Greece-Cyprus electricity interconnection cable issue, while regarding reports of dismissals at Violanta, he stated that “what the workers of Violanta say is of greater importance. We are reading about an alleged wave of dismissals. The company itself has also issued an announcement denying the reports. Obviously all the facts are being investigated by the Labor Inspectorate”.
Regarding the Mitsotakis – Netanyahu meeting at the UN, Mr. Marinakis noted that the prime minister of Israel “is one of the state leaders who participated in the work of the UN General Assembly. Foreign policy is based on the national interest and not on ideological fixations inside and outside Greece”.
Finally, responding to Alexis Tsipras, who argued in an interview that the Mitsotakis government is as if it has imposed a new memorandum on the Greek people, the government spokesperson underlined: “Mr. Tsipras is the politician who would tear up the memoranda and burdened us with the heaviest one, of 120 billion euros. It is clear that the rebranding is ‘I am trying to rewrite history in case people forget’. We will not forget, nor the things we know”.