The presentation of the economic program by former Prime Minister and leader of the Greek Left Alliance (EL.A.S.), Alexis Tsipras, from Thessaloniki, triggered an immediate and fierce response from the government. Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister and government spokesperson, Pavlos Marinakis, launched a sharp attack on Tsipras’s economic proposals, arguing that his announcements would add an additional fiscal burden of €13 billion in the very first year of implementation alone. Marinakis condemned what he called “hollow promises with no costing” and “patriotic taxes” that “awaken the worst memories, especially for the middle class.”
Marinakis on Tsipras economic plan: “An attempt to erase the past”
The full statement by Pavlos Marinakis reads: “No matter how hard Mr. Tsipras tries to reinvent himself as something ‘new,’ every public appearance proves that he remains exactly the same. Today, he added €13 billion to the bill — and that’s only in the first year of implementing his announcements — blowing the entire budget out of the water. Hollow promises with no costing, and ‘patriotic taxes’ that awaken the worst memories, especially for the middle class. He has once again started making reckless pledges of new handouts, ignoring every European expenditure ceiling rule — using the exact same formula as the infamous Thessaloniki Programme of 2014.
And while the uncosted promises kept piling up, not a single word of self-criticism was heard from the former Prime Minister regarding the damage he inflicted on the country and its citizens. Unrepentant, he is now trying to convince people that Greeks in 2019 — with 600,000 fewer jobs, double the unemployment rate, lower incomes, and dozens of higher tax brackets — were somehow living better than they are today.
Mr. Tsipras is once again serving up ‘easy’ solutions to difficult problems, in an attempt to erase the past. New words, same old illusions. The packaging may change, but the contents remain identical. Everyone now knows, however, that the more Mr. Tsipras promises, the bigger the bill he intends to hand to the taxpayers.”
