Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-06-14

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

CONTENTS

[01] PM Tsipras: 'The strategic management of Greece's image is a necessity'

[02] Government sources, ND continue to contend over 'Resign' movement

[03] Varoufakis on Greek 'depression' and homelessness at INSP Global Street Paper Summit

[01] PM Tsipras: 'The strategic management of Greece's image is a necessity'

Tsipras stressed that "we must draft a comprehensive plan of communication policy, because if we do not take care of our country's image, someone else will do it for us" and announced eight initiatives that will directly improve the image of Greece.

- Doubling the advertising expenditure in tourism sector

- Implementing a communications programme and activities in all public sector entities

- Cooperation and connection of the press offices of the ministries with the Secretariat General of Information and Communication aiming at the promotion of the government work in the domestic and foreign market

- Communication initiatives by ministry, fame trips organization, action of distinguished and innovative personalities (ambassadors)

- Portal dedicated to the actions of each ministry with a clear and common communication identity

- Communication support to small and large initiatives which will act as an attraction of international interest

- The promotion of Athens can be one of the strategies to improve the country's image

- A more extended and in depth study of Greece's image today both in the country and outside the country

The next meeting of the Council of National Communication Policy will take place in October, Tsipras announced and concluded: "There is still much work to do and everyone must be committed that will work in order to have the desired results."

[02] Government sources, ND continue to contend over 'Resign' movement

"ND has adopted a political plan whose main axis is the formula: 'economic difficulty and anti-democratic deviation = social unrest.' This plan is very fashionable, at this time, against left-wing governments in various parts of the world," the sources noted. Now that its plan did not fit Greece's reality, ND was trying to force reality to fit its plan, they added.

"However much ND has bled to achieve the opposite, the review has concluded, the government did not face a state of political crisis and the demand for elections has degenerated into a political joke," the sources said.

Attacking the government and SYRIZA party in an announcement on Tuesday, ND said that "they have admitted that they are the worst and most authoritarian government of the post-junta era." The government had found nothing to say in response to criticism levelled by ND leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis about the way the government had downgraded Parliament, the announcement said, "just as they found noting to say about the actions, omissions and behavour of government members that offend the Constitution and the democratic order."

[03] Varoufakis on Greek 'depression' and homelessness at INSP Global Street Paper Summit

Referring to his sensational half year at the helm of Greece's finance ministry, a roller-coaster ride that began in euphoria and ended with capital controls, Varoufakis said that division within the then government was to blame for the failure of the negotiations with the country's creditors and the dashing of voters' hopes.

As a result, Greece was now struggling with "depression, economic and psychological, and anger," he said.

According to the economist and former minister, the question was how to convert this depression and anger through a political process into hope.

"I very much fear that we cannot do this on our own in Greece. I fear and hope that this is a systemic crisis throughout Europe. It is not a Greek crisis. The question is whether we here in Greece can form alliances with political forces in all of Europe, in order to put pressure on the political system to deliver a new deal," he said.

During his speech, Varoufakis revealed that one of his proposals to the creditors during the 2015 negotiations had been the formation of a "bad bank" that would allow Greek banks to take non-performing loans off their books and clean up their loan portfolios, so they were once again able to lend to profitable businesses. According to Varoufakis, the troika showed absolutely no interest in this proposal and insisted that banks quickly offload problem mortgages to distress funds, which would then "chase after the owners, evict them, foreclose properties and put them up for auction."

This would have led to an "explosion" in the number of homeless people in Greece, Varoufakis said, predicting that the foreclosures that will begin in the next three or four months in the country will be "rapid, vile and brutal, making the problem of homelessness in Greece even more acute."

This modern version of homelessness, he added, was part of Europe's denial of a need to change the architecture of the economic system and introduce a "new deal" on a macroeconomic level, like that offered by U.S. President Roosevelt in 1933. He also commented on the turmoil in France over labour issues, saying this was the extension of policies first imposed on the deficit countries in the periphery of Europe to countries at the core, like France and Germany.

Talking about the refugee crisis, Varoufakis was deeply critical of the EU-Turkey agreement, calling it "scandalous" and "something of which we should be collectively deeply ashamed". What Europe had done, according to Varoufakis, was to "bribe an imperial Turkish president that attacks his own citizens" with six million euros, in order that "he allow the EU to violate international law.

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