Tsipras crosses swords with Samaras during parliamentary plenum

The PM began by stating that there is a “collective strategy of negotiations, open and transparent for the Greek people”. He added that “the majority of citizens continues to support the negotiations of the government and asks us to not back down at all”.

“We will follow the Greek peoples’ mandate”, he added and stated that “it’s time to speak of truths that can be hidden no longer”. Mr. Tsipras stated that the public sector funds that his government received from Mr. Samaras’ government were empty. That the surplus of which the previous New Democracy government spoke, was much smaller than claimed.

According to Mr. Tsipras, the 20th of February decision will mean that the government will implement a program to restructure the economy and the Greek debt, while he underscored that negotiations are the “road to getting rid of austerity in the Eurozone”.

He asked Mr. Samaras, who had blamed him of signing a memorandum, if the law of 100 tranches to settle debts to the public sector is a new memorandum, if it has already brought in 100 million euros in one week. He underlined that the government is seeking an honest settlement with partners, and not an “unconditional surrender”.

“The Greek society understands and supports us”, he stated, noting that the Memorandum failed. Addressing Mr. Samaras again, the PM asked him why the previous government did not proceed with tax audits on people included in the Lagarde List, out of which, -as he said-, only 25 of 2,062 names have been audited.

According to the Prime Minister, the new Greek government is “bleeding” so that the people won’t have to. He reiterated that his government has proposed reforms to combat illegal trade, to harmonize the relationship between Greek and European laws, to ramp up checks on bank transfers, to combat illegal employment, and a tax on TV advertisements.

Mr. Tsipras stated: “The government did not hesitate to mention words such as dignity, national sovereignty, SIEMENS, war reparations, even in Berlin”.

Main opposition leader Antonis Samaras shot back from Parliament’s podium on Monday evening against the leftist SYRIZA government by charging that “you’re not governing the country because your own (MPs) won’t let you govern.”

He spoke during an extraordinary party leaders’ debate convened at the request of PM Alexis Tsipras, who spoke first in a nationally televised address.

“If you wanted to really let the citizens know what’s going on you should have brought a proposal for the Memorandum to Parliament, Mr. Tsipras … You’re a Merkelist, Mr. Tsipras. You transformed the issue of German reparations into a moral one… Mr. Tsipras, you didn’t even brief us on the Feb. 20 agreement, nor on the proposals you tabled to the Troika,” Samaras said.

The up-until-recently prime minister also called on the Tsipras government to stop referring to “fairy tales and return to reality”, while adding that his party is ready to back a “serious agreement brought forth by the government”.