Press interview of the Vice-president of the Government Mr. Theodoros Pangalos in the newspaper “Kathimerini tis Kiriakis” dated 27.11.11

November 27, 2011 | Speeches - Interviews

-You mentioned that the memorandum is a “blessing” for the country. Do you still believe it to be so after its overall failure?
At last I want somebody to give me a chance to have a better memorandum. If I read such a text, I will admit that we “were wrong”. Instead of an alternative proposition however, I am exposed only to poppycock. Poppycock and words in the air that unfortunately mouth even academics. That is, why the Greek university is in such a mess.

- You mean that the memorandum is successful?
The contrary. Yet the memorandum failed because we did not bring the reforms to a complete end and we did not move with the decisiveness that was necessary. We failed in the cutbacks of expenses and mainly in the increase of revenues by cutting down tax evasion and tax escape.

-Therefore it seems that the leadership of the Ministry of Finance is to blame, that is Mr. Papaconstadinou and Mr. Venizelos.
Evidently it is a matter of leadership and mechanisms of the specific ministry but it is also a matter of all those who did their tricks and took their money abroad defrauding and stealing the public sector, without anyone paying what was due.

- And what did you do? And I refer to you personally because you had a responsibility by cutting down the expenses and by abolishing useless agencies.
I have answered this; I only had consulting and not a legislative charge and exhausted all the available limits. Now as for assuming the related initiatives, you may address the ministers responsible for each period.

- To come to the news of the day, was Mr. Samaras wrong to claim that the demand of our partners was derogatory to cancel out any alternative policy of the opposition?
I do not want to judge the president of the New Democracy as he supports the government to which I belong. However, I have said that when you are in a position of borrowing, it is not you who set the terms but he who provides the loan. The partners asked to be reassured that their money wouldn’t disappear. And since Mr. Samaras said that he supports actively the government, I never understood why he refused to put a signature creating thus a huge issue around a non existing matter.

- Since the issue was non existent, how do you explain the great insistence of our partners?
I cannot and I do not wish to psychoanalyze our partners. I told you which according to my opinion the obvious way of their thinking was.

-You characterize the referendum as a mistake. You simply believe that Mr. Papandreou did not take into account the consequences?
I said it in public, and I said it to him personally. I will never understand how G. Papandreou with such a thorough experience of the community matters was drawn to a choice that only with the word “curse” could be described. Because as many times community countries resorted to referendums, we were left with very unfavorable repercussions in the European unification. And I don’t mean only the European constitution. I will call upon the English who permanently have a majority percentage asking that they should leave the EU and who have never proceeded to a relevant referendum. In referendums, it is proven that the citizens do not vote by making a thorough analysis of the dilemma but by making simple guesses that are influenced by their mental opposition to who ever puts the question.

- When you obviously mentioned all this, what did Mr. Papandreou tell you?
He did not answer by something specific. I was left with the impression that he simply had an obsession for the idea of the referendum because he wanted the people to express their view. But this was a tremendous risk that caused a huge problem throughout the planet. To make you understand, since at the time I was in China, the local communist newspaper of Guangzhou-selling one million of copies! – made the Greek referendum its leading subject and had Mr. Papandreou in cartoons with negative comments for Greece.

-Is it easy to reverse this huge distrust for the country?
This distrust did not commence now. It started before the time of Mr. Karamanlis premiership during which it grew bigger. However, already from the second term of Mr. Simitis, there was a series of promised institutional interventions that never took place. Neither did we reform our educational system nor the tax system, nor the voting system so things remain they way they were. You might think that with the Olympic Games and when we became part of the Economic and Monetary Union, there was the end of the history of the Greek state. The opposite happened. New period began that demanded a brave intervention into the state. If you do not believe me, read the book by Mr. Simitis in which he numbers all that we had promised and never dared to implement.

- Have you understood what is Ms. Merkel targeting?
That which Germany supports is perfectly right. And Ms. Merkel as several of our partners do rightly underlines that common monetary area suffers from a deficit of regulatory principle and that it needs a common monetary policy. This means that very clear rules must be laid down to all. I hear different silly people, calling this “supervision” overlooking the facts that when there is a common monetary unit, it is unthinkable for everybody to do a few things to increase accordingly his deficits and to charge the future generations as much as he wants. To save the European Union, rules must be laid down and we, as the most frivolous are the first who must abide by them. You will ask if there is an alternative proposal. Of course there is. It is the bucolic development supported by KKE and SYRRIZA, two parties that equally oppose the EU. What do they counter propose? To go back to bucolic Greece, with our farms, to graze our sheet and to top it all to have another Enver Hoja who now and then slaughters 5-6000”heads” to “cleanse” those who are badly thinking, and restore “tranquility…”.

- There is also the argument that if we are to become miserable with the euro, how would it be different if we returned to drachma.
Another big nonsense. In our country, we discuss about whether we should or not leave the euro and we are not aware that what is at stake for us is to be abandoned by the euro. I say it again. For us to survive, within our natural territory which is the European Union, it doesn’t make sense any more to do whatever we want. Much more to bad mouth and offend deeply the Germans. Have you read what even the counselors of party leaders write in the newspapers? They characterize Hitler-like all the Germans together as well as their representatives. Since I know very well this country and I once had a problem with all I had said, (he means his statement that “German is a giant with a brain of a child”), there is nothing worse for a German than to call him Hitler like period. You may call him a thief, a robber, a liar but comparing him with Nazi Germany is very big hubris.

-And the eventuality that Germany methodically plans its own withdrawal from the Eurozone, is it simply a conspiracy scenario?
No. There was even a relevant discussion in Germany which we got wind of last. Likely however, with the imposition that Ms. Merkel succeeded, both in her coalition and to a great extent to deputies of the opposition, it is no longer an issue of dissolving the Eurozone, nor withdrawing Germany from it. Germans are decided to pay the cost to maintain the euro because they have understood that their interests are in Europe. But this doesn’t mean that someone may blackmail them, and our political powers would better keep that in mind.

- When do you think they will be elections?
Until the budget is voted, I have no intention to get into these discussions.

- Aren’t you going to talk about your own news inside your party? I read that you excluded yourself from the successors?
Even if you would like to strip for me, although this will move me in its originality, I will not tell you anything about my party.

- Aren’t you going to talk about what was written that you are very close with the troika of PASOK with whom you had lunched?
I am close with everyone and I would tell you foremost with Mr. Papandreou whose contribution in the recent period I respect and appreciate contrary to others who stone him.

-Especially in the end, at any rate, his government showed to have lost control completely even in the issue concerning order.
I do not deny it. Even now it is unthinkable for me that any Fotopoulos may take charge of the Public Power Corporation and then wait for days so that the police may intervene.

-Isn’t Mr. Papoutsis responsible?
Of course he does. He is particularly responsible. I have fought for many years in favor of the personal rights of citizens and now in the sunset of my life, I cannot walk across the square of Syntagma without being threatened by anyone who happens to be there. It is a jungle created by parliament parties and deputies mobilizing bums, criminal elements and why not terrorists.

- What you just described was the tens of thousands indignant citizens?
I refer to those who created, encouraged and maintained for months a jungle in the biggest square of the country.