Despite the fact that the flagrant offense period has passed, Nikos Pappas continues to remain missing and, as everything indicates, he is in Athens, since he disappeared from Wednesday evening when the lawsuit was filed by Nikos Giannopoulos.
Information from Nikos Pappas’ side reported by Antenna stated, however, that the MEP “did not hide, nor did he flee to escape arrest. The police could have come to his office in Strasbourg and found him, but no one searched for him. The day after the incident he followed his schedule normally. He went to the European Parliament votes, gave his scheduled speech and left the same afternoon, as he had planned for Greece”.
Nikos Giannopoulos: “I have no history with Nikos Pappas, he has opened beef with many journalists”
For his part, journalist Nikos Giannopoulos in an interview, referring to the possible reasons the incident occurred, stated that they had no history. “I have no history with him. He has opened beef with many journalists. I remind you what he did after the winning basket with Fenerbahce in a 2017 game. The beefs he has opened with Vasilis Skountis”.
And he added: “We didn’t speak. I didn’t want to talk to him, from the previous incidents I had with him. He didn’t speak to me either. We had no other contact and I aspire to have no other contact with him until we speak in court”.
He described how in the morning at the hotel the MEP attempted to approach. “He tried to sit next to us and I told him ‘either you or me’. I left the table”.
“I proceeded with the legal action, because this thing must stop at some point. We came to do a job and with his behavior he didn’t allow us to. We spent the whole day at the police station”.
For SYRIZA the matter is closed, in the sense that Socrates Famellos took a very clear position from the first moment, removing Nikos Pappas from the eurogroup and demanding his expulsion from the party.
Famellos message on moves ahead of new Tsipras party: “We don’t care about the chair – All progressive forces together to bring down Mitsotakis”
Indeed, Socrates Famellos, speaking with journalists in Parliament, also made revelations about the Tsipras party. “Will you keep the party now that Tsipras is coming?”, the SYRIZA president was asked. “We don’t care about the chair. The issue is for us all to go together, to bring down Mitsotakis, all progressive forces”, he replied.
He also clarified that the call is addressed to PASOK as well. “Things are not compartmentalized boxes”, he said characteristically, while mentioning that he views positively the initiatives from Loukas Katseli, Petros Kokkalis and Nikos Kotzias. Conversely, he excluded from the discussion Zoe Konstantopoulou and Yanis Varoufakis.
“War” in the Left
However, at the same time war broke out between the Left, as New Left Secretary Gabriel Sakellaridis found the opportunity to respond to Alexis Tsipras for the criticism he makes of his former comrades, criticizing him for the fact that the former prime minister brought Nikos Pappas to SYRIZA.
“I know what dignity means in what you want to show you are as a party, which aspires to represent those who need justice. And how important it is that the choices of people don’t only obey communication, but symbolize the ethos and values of what you want as the Left to bring to society”, writes Gabriel Sakellaridis among other things, leaving very clear barbs against the former prime minister for his choices.
Sakellaridis “jabs” at Tsipras over Pappas and the “leftometer”
Of course, this confrontation happened for other reasons too. Prompted by what the former prime minister said in Patras about the “leftometer”, pointing towards his former New Left comrades, Gabriel Sakellaridis responded to him with his post saying that: “The fact that the one who bullied him was a SYRIZA MEP and almost Athens mayoral candidate (with great chances of being elected), proves how deep the rot of politics and the Left is, in parties that invoke its name. And how much this ‘isolated’ tile constitutes a piece of the overall picture of the problem of the Left’s devaluation, which today doesn’t convince and doesn’t inspire, despite the makeovers, damage controls and comebacks. I don’t know what ‘leftometer’ means, I haven’t understood it for so many years, despite the well-intentioned efforts of several to admonish us”.
