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”.

“If you intend to cause a credit event we are 100% against you. The consequences will be disastrous for the country,” he warned.

“You, Mr. Tsipras, dreamed of receiving loans without a memorandum. In the end, you signed an extension of the memorandum without getting any money.”

Samaras also sharply criticized the new SYRIZA government for returning illegal migrants loose onto the centre of Athens, as he said, and for allowed masked youths to occupy and vandalize public buildings in the Greek capital.