Tsipras at TIF: 'We are still here, after 4.5 years of struggles, to ensure Greece keeps standing up
Former prime minister Tsipras said that when SYRIZA became government (in January 2015) "the country was amidst a humanitarian crisis, unemployment was stuck at 27 pct after eight consecutive years of compacted economic recession, with the country losing cumulatively 25 pct of its wealth, with banks on the verge of collapse, empty (social insurance) funds, an inability to handle public debt and a total deregulation of the labor market," Tsipras recounted.
The SYRIZA leader said Greece's problems were not "magically solved," but "the country's image has changed radically and no one can deny it," he assured.
He then emphasized that "within a very short time, we succeeded where the old political system had failed after three successive governments that represented it," before reciting some of his former government's policy achievements, these being, Tsipras said, the reduction of the targets for primary surpluses, putting an end to the need for fiscal adjustment directives, the reduction of unemployment by 10 percentage points and the creation of 675,000 new jobs by June 2019, and also tackling undeclared/untaxed work, raising the minimum wage, bringing back collective labor agreements, and as he himself put it summarily "bringing the Greek economy back on track."
"We returned to financial markets with the Greek bond marking a historic low already in January 2019," said Tsipras and "with prudent management we created an unprecedented security reserve of 37 billion euros, that safeguards the country from external disturbances and creates great flexibility, as long as it is used properly," he underlined.
On SYRIZA's additional performance when in government, Tsipras reported a 30% reduction in ENFIA for small and medium-sized properties, self-employment insurance contributions from 20 pct to 13.3 pct, a rent subsidy for 300,000 households, the abolition of the tuition fee for cooperative farmers and rural cooperatives, the subsidizing of insurance contributions for young workers up to 25 years and the reduction of corporate taxation by 1 pct.
Furthermore, he mentioned 7,000 staff hires for the Home Assistance and Special Needs programs, and raising the minimum wage from 586 euros to 650 euros and also abolishing the half-wage.
"Everything that SYRIZA had claimed, became, one by one," Tsipras noted.
On the two month-young New Democracy government, Tsipras said he sees "an authoritarian, anti-social, anti-working-rights regime. A regime with zero respect for the rules, be they parliamentary rules, rules of democracy, or rules of justice."
"The country has a new government, but it also has a strong, very strong opposition," Tsipras stressed, and added "how one-third of Greeks gave a vote of confidence in SYRIZA in a very difficult election battle (July 7)," therefore, he said "we are here as the strong democratic and progressive pole (of opposition.) The great democratic and progressive movement, the great movement of the Left," he said.
In an apologetic tone, Alexis Tsipras said that "we have shown an unwillingness to act faster and more decisively to take relief, anti-austerity measures," and went on to say that "a second point of self-criticism concerns our determination to address issues related to the functioning of the state," and that his government "did not demonstrate the courage it needed to break through the para-centers of power in branches of the government and beyond, from ministries and banks to the audit authorities and the judiciary," he related.
Returning to the issues at hand, SYRIZA's leader said that "we are not going to let things happen that will cancel out our collective achievements," and added that even though the economy is now positive and "the black days of bankruptcy are behind us," Tsipras warned that "this picture-perfect is not a given, as "there is an unstable, fluid international and European climate (in politics and society)."
Source: ana-mpa