The bizarre
attempt to have me indicted me on… treason charges, allegedly for
conspiring to push Greece out of the Eurozone, reflects something
much broader
It reflects
a determined effort to de-legitimise our five-month long (25th
January to 5th July 2015) negotiation with a troika incensed that we
had the audacity to dispute the wisdom and efficacy of its failed
program for Greece.
The aim of
my self-styled persecutors is to characterise our defiant negotiating
stance as an aberration, an error or, even better from the
perspective of Greece’s troika-friendly oligarchic establishment,
as a ‘crime’ against Greece’s national interest.
My dastardly
‘crime’ was that, expressing the collective will of our
government, I personified the sins of:
- Facing down the Eurogroup’s leaders as an equal that has the right to say ‘NO’ and to present powerful analytical reasons for rebuffing the catastrophic illogicality of huge loans to an insolvent state in condirion of self-defeating austerity
- Demonstrating that one can be a committed Europeanist, strive to keep one’s nation in the Eurozone, and, at the very same time, reject Eurogroup policies which damage Europe, deconstruct the euro and, crucially, trap one’s country in austerity-driven debt-bondage
- Planning for contingencies that leading Eurogroup colleagues, and high ranking troika officials, were threatening me with in face-to-face discussions
- Unveiling how previous Greek governments turned crucial government departments, such as the General Secretariat of Public Revenues and the Hellenic Statistical Office, into departments effectively controlled by the troika and reliably pressed into the service of undermining the elected government.
It is amply
clear that the Greek government has a duty to recover national and
democratic sovereignty over all departments of state, and in
particular those of the Finance Ministry. If it does not, it will
continue to forfeit the instruments of policy making that voters
expect it to utilise in pursuit of the mandate they bestowed upon it.
In my
ministerial endeavours, my team and I devised innovative methods for
developing the Finance Ministry’s tools to deal efficiently with
the troika-induced liquidity crunch while recouping executive powers
previously usurped by the troika with the consent of previous
governments.
Instead of
indicting, and persecuting, those who, to this day, function within
the public sector as the troika’s minions and lieutenants (while
receiving their substantial salaries from the long-suffering Greek
taxpayers), politicians and parties whom the electorate condemned for
their efforts to turn Greece into a protectorate are now persecuting
me, aided and abetted by the oligarchs’ media. I wear their
accusations as badges of honour.
The proud
and honest negotiation that the SYRIZA government conducted from the
first day we were elected has already changed Europe’s public
debates for the better. The debate about the democratic deficit
afflicting the Eurozone is now unstoppable. Alas, the troika’s
domestic cheerleaders do not seem able to bear this historic success.
Their efforts to criminalise it will crash of the same shoals that
wrecked their blatant propaganda campaign against the ‘No’ vote
in the 5th July referendum: the great majority of the fearless Greek
people.
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