Tsipras: “The new memorandum is ready”
Alexis Tsipras said that a SYRIZA government wouldn’t inherit a “oral or written” agreement between government and troika, speaking yesterday at an international conference organized by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in collaboration with Nicos Poulantzas Institute and Transform Europe, which had “The left in government-what, why and how” as topic.
Tsipras said “the coalition and interrelation are trying craftily to input their meters in the dark, with the new memorandum in the drawer” which he said “is ready, in its English original form and will be presented after the elections”. A SYRIZA government, he stressed, means “people’s mandate for an end to austerity and understandings. In democracies, the people's mandate is not violated and not falsified”.
Analyzing the importance of the upcoming Euro elections, the president of SYRIZA begun “the election are close” and on the other hand, added “these elections will be extremely critical for Greece and for Europe, as in these elections a first win for the left in Greece will pave the way for all Europe”. He reiterated his position that SYRIZA will require a EU summit on the debt problem in the Eurozone, which will require lenders to start negotiations on a new loan agreement from scratch.
In this context, Tsipras said, we will claim:
- Retrospective direct refinancing of banks by the European Stability Mechanism, in spite of Schauble’s and Regling’s positions. So, the sums must be excluded from the debt of our countries.
- Implementation of SYRIZA’s proposal “European Conference on Debt”.
Referring to the Crimea crisis, Tsipras completely distanced himself from the governments and the EU’s policy mentioning that the Ukrainian crisis is another historic setback for the European Union. This is because, they not only failed to become a coherent political force for international promotion of democracy and international law, but instead, for the first time chose to partner with a government with far-right and neo-Nazi elements.
It is sad reduction of principles and values, he said and added: “There is an electoral hypocrisy with worries about the rise of the extreme right and neo-Nazism in Europe. At the same time, they cooperate with them in Ukraine? Schultz’s statements weren’t the greatest hypocrisy? And I’m talking about Schultz because Jean-Claude Juncker probably has nothing to worry about”.
