PRESS RELEASE
Firestorm of Opposition in Greece to 'New Versailles Treaty'
July 13, 2015 (EIRNS)—The plan Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was brutalized into accepting from the country's creditors, has created a huge popular backlash which calls into question whether the policy can be implemented. The sense of rage in the Greek population is clear. Former diplomat, and member of the EPAM People's United Front, Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos told Russian broadcast agency RT that the agreement was unacceptable and could not be implemented. He said he fears that the situation could get violent.
The defense minister and leader of Tsipras' coalition partner Independent Greeks Party, Panos Kammenos, spoke to Reuters:
" 'The prime minister of this country was faced with a coup staged by Germany and other countries,' Kammenos said after meeting with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. 'This deal introduced many new issues ... we cannot agree with it.' "
Former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis denounced the agreement in no uncertain terms. "This is the politics of humiliation," he told Australian Radio.
"The Troika have made sure that they will make him eat every single word that he uttered in criticism of the Troika over the last five years. Not just these six months we've been in government, but in the years prior to that.
"This has nothing to do with economics. It has nothing to do with putting Greece on the way to recovery. This is a new Versailles Treaty that is haunting Europe again, and the prime minister knows it. He knows that he's damned if he does and he's damned if he doesn't."
Comparing the agreement to the 1967 military coup d'état, he said,
"In the coup d'état the choice of weapon used in order to bring down democracy then was the tanks. Well, this time it was the banks. The banks were used by foreign powers to take over the government. The difference is that this time they're taking over all public property... The project of a European democracy, of a united European democratic union, has just suffered a major catastrophe."
Varoufakis revealed that he had drafted very preliminary plans in case of a forced Grexit, but it was feared that once known, the plans would become a self-fulfilling prophecy playing into the hands of those who want Greece out.
There is opposition being expressed throughout Tsipras' Syriza Party; it is reported that 32 Syriza MPs, including four ministers, have distanced themselves from the agreement.
Labor Minister Panos Skourletis, a former spokesman for Syriza, told state television the government will need "borrowed votes from the opposition" in order to pass the new austerity measures demanded by creditors. Kathimerini quotes him as saying,
"I cannot see how we can avoid elections in 2015. ... It's unnatural: We believe in something different than what we've been forced to sign with a gun pointed to our head."
The Iskra website, which speaks for Syriza's Left Platform led by Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, charged that "After 17 hours of "negotiations', the leaders of Eurozone states reached a humiliating agreement for Greece and the Greek people," as a "debt colony" in a "German-supervised EU."
The Syriza parliamentary faction is to meet Tuesday.
