SYRIZA opposition party president Alexis Tsipras stated on Saturday, that: “The troika’s Greek program has failed,” with the country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) falling by an accumulated 25%, the unemployment rate in Greece at 29% and the country’s public debt at 175% of GDP.
Addressing the Ambrosetti Forum in northern Italy, Mr. Tsipras said: “Rightfully, more and more people in Europe say that the troika must be repealed. The “catastroika” must end”. The leader of the main opposition party, in his speech, added “it is impossible to have budget surpluses of 4.5 pct on an annual basis,” while he underlined that the privatizations program was not offering results since the first memorandum envisaged privatization proceeds of 50 billion euros. Tsipras said that privatization proceeds so far totaled 2.9 billion euros and noted that total proceeds could never surpass 9.0 billion euros.
Mr. Tsipras said there were many possibilities within the European framework to resolve the Greek problem, but not “in troika’s framework since the troika has failed and must cease to exist, along with its political heritage”. Referring to the unemployment problem, he said that while Greece has 1.5 million unemployed, the government and the troika were discussing deregulating dismissals, prohibiting strikes and raising the number of dismissals in the public sector.
Addressing the forum, Tsipras said Europe’s three main problems were stagnation, deflation and the preservation of accumulated public and private debt. He demanded a new, courageous monetary policy by the European Central Bank to deal with deflation, although he acknowledged that Draghi’s proposal surpassed an existing dogma and urged for “more radical interventions”. He supported a broader role by the European Investment Bank and new initiatives by the European Commission to help spur growth in Europe, to deal with unemployment and to restore social cohesion. On the debt problem, Tsipras reiterated that a radical European solution was necessary and reminded of the “positive historic example” of the London Conference in 1953, while he said he supported mutual debt sharing and growth clauses.
SYRIZA’s president urged for the building of new foundations in Europe to restore its founding principles and expressed his belief that his party will soon be “a political power governing Greece, a development positive for Europe”.