PM Tsipras backs Varoufakis, says he gave orders for 'Grexit' defence plans

"Mr. Varoufakis may have made mistakes, you can accuse him of many things,...but not of being dishonest, of stealing the people's money. So long as he was minister, he did not send his money abroad like his predecessor, he did not hide lists of tax evaders in his desk, like Mr. Venizelos. My associate did not have his money abroad and tax-free, like a close associate of the former prime minister," Tsipras said, urging Gennimata to look to her own party for scandals.

Tsipras criticised Gennimata's suggestion as "a blatant, extremely dangerous and conscious effort to distort the truth," and accused her of seeking to target and ridicule his own government's efforts to negotiate because her own party, when in power, "did not negotiate at all but simply accepted whatever the creditors gave them."

"As for plans to exit the euro, we never had them and never worked on them. Obviously, we had a plan for managing an emergency. You would have to hold us accountable if we didn't. You'd best ask those that were preparing a grexit....Have you heard nothing about the European Commission's 1,000-page Plan B? It was first heard in 2012 and is constantly updated...Ask the German government. Their plan is still on the table," Tsipras said.

"Shouldn't we, as a government, have planned our defences against a possible grexit? It was our obligation," he added, while repeatedly saying that this plan was solely to prepare a defence, not to initiate a euro exit.
Replying, Gennimata said her party had done its housekeeping and insisted that there was a major political scandal led by Varoufakis and "dangerous plans for the country's exit from the euro." If the plans were carried out on his orders, why were they kept secret, she asked.
She then criticised Tsipras for playing to the various 'galleries' in his own party and occupying himself with its internal affairs, instead "of exploiting this grand Parliamentary majority and consensus that Parliament gave you, lifting your burdens so you can form a national front."

"The country needs a national plan for reorganisation. The new PASOK is occupying itself with this, and working with the healthy productive forces of society that you are destroying," she said.

Responding, Tsipras pointed out that if his secret plan was to exit the euro, he would have used the 62 pct majority in the referendum as a mandate to carry it out. The former finance minister's plan for an electronic payments system was useful, whether in the euro or a national currency, he added.