Deputy prime minister and president of PASOK Evangelos Venizelos dismissed the claims of an article published by the Financial Times about the role of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in the selection of Lucas Papademos as the prime minister for Greece.

According to Mr. Venizelos, George Papandreou selected the prime minister he wanted. The Deputy Prime Minister also noted that Mr. Papandreou had agreed with Mr. Samaras in June 2011 to form a government with another prime minister.

Talking to private television channel “Star”, Mr. Venizelos called the article’s claims “absurdities” and argued that Mr Barroso had very restricted powers of political intervention, compared to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy and it was neither his job nor his desire to play such a role.

In regards to the events that occurred at Cannes in 2011, after former Greek premier George Papandreou announced his intention to hold a referendum on bailout memorandums in Greece, he said he had not been informed about Papandreou’s proposal in advance and that he had disagreed with it.
“Subsequently, I adopted a careful position in order to help the premier, the government, the country, the economy, the banking system, the deposits of Greece and the prospect of a reliable negotiation,” he said. He also underlined that he could not have supported holding the only referendum that European leaders had been prepared to accept, which was whether Greece would stay or exit the euro.

Evangelos Venizelos also explained his views on what he called the “dilemma” raised by the upcoming local and European elections

He said that he expected a good election result “because citizens have understood that we are one step before exiting the crisis and that the other choice was absolute disaster”. Regarding his warning to voters to support PASOK in order to protect the government’s stability, he repeated that “on the night of the elections everyone will be lying in wait, everyone will offer an intepretation of the result and this will be to question whether the government is standing or whether there is crisis, doubt, overthrow.”