Athens News Agency: News in English, 10-06-25

Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Samaras opens ND 8th party congress

[01] Samaras opens ND 8th party congress

Samaras maintained that "the memorandum does not save Greece but it leads it to a vicious circle of recession."

"The ND shapes a strategy to rid (Greece) of the memorandum and the committments it contains, not to return to extravagance and slackening but to get out of the crisis through growth, based on our own forces," Samaras added.

The ND leader also referred to the "seven deadly flaws" of the system "under collapse", namely, "statism, populism, hegemony of leftist ideas, downgraded public interest, fake prosperity based on borrowing, a decline of values and role models."

He pointed out that four major deficits will have to be met, citing "competitiveness, democracy, security and education."

Referring to ND, he stressed that it engaged in self-criticism and is being rebuilt ideologically, politically and organisationally, in order to become a modern European party of the center-right.

"When everything trembles, ND will be still standing providing solutions and a way out," he stressed.

Samaras also sharply criticised Prime Minister George Papandreou, stressing that ND is leading the country to the new era.

"Greece wants a leader who is realistic and not a wandering traveller who is trying to save the rest of the world at a time when his own country is suffering," he said about the prime minister.

He added that "he (the premier) is boasting with green growth and the socialist international, he is lying with the deficits and harming Greece," while accusing him of "secret diplomacy and backstage negotiations on national issues."

He further referred to Thursday's deadly terrorist attack at the citizen's protection ministry, saying that "I condemn the attack with all my strength, the inadequacy of the state however is becoming blatant and the prime minister must at last assume his responsibilities."

Samaras once again criticised the "government's crutches" that voted in favour of the memorandum together with PASOK.

"Maybe they did not realise what they voted or they wanted to deal a blow at ND, but all who are identified with the government at a time when the country is sinking are benefitting PASOK and not the country," he said.

The ND leader continued his attack on the government, saying that "in eight months PASOK broke all the negative records, we have the most incapable government, they received a deficit problem and turned it into a debt crisis, they increased unemployment and inflation, they abolished the two important ministries of Shipping and Tourism, they gave votes to immigrants who were not naturalised while they are denying it for diaspora Greeks, they dismantled foreign policy that was turining the country into an energy hub. ND is offering an alternative policy because it gave support where it should, while it resisted the memorandum which is the toughest austerity package that has ever been implemented and is imposing suffocation on society and the economy. The memorandum was not the only solution. The struggle we waged in parliament was not for the borrowing it was for the measures that trap Greece in a vicious circle of recession, unemployment, inflation. If we voted for it we would deprive the country of a serious and responsible opposition for four years."

Samaras also announced the establishment of posts for two vice presidents in the party.

Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article