Greek PM Alexis Tsipras is delivering a keynote speech at Zappeion Hall at 7.30pm on Friday, declaring the exit of the country from the memorandum after last night’s Eurogroup statement on the Greek debt.
The Greek PM is addressing the party members of SYRIZA and ANEL, and the event will take on a festive tone with preparations ongoing.
“Today is an important day for all of us. It belongs primarily to those who have been brutally hit by the crisis for eight years now. Austerity will be day by day replaced by social justice. Uncertainty will be replaced by stability, security and certainty, normalcy will take the place of uncertainty. We have managed to solve the problem of the Greek debt, a problem we had inherited. We took a country on the edge of the cliff with one and a half million unemployed. We had the duty to change the country.
In this endeavor, we sometimes had to clash, other times were forced to agree to painful compromises and reached where we are. At the end of a time that every Greek woman and man wants to forget. We have arrived at the end of the memorandums. We all can today, for one day, allow ourselves to be happy because Greece is becoming a normal country”, he said.
Mr Tsipras appeared wearing a red necktie, keeping one of his promises after his claim that Greece has exited the memorandums.
The Prime Minister is expected to talk about the return of Greece to normalcy with the ending of the memorandums and the monitoring, in response to the opposition parties’ claims that the surveillance will continue until 2060.
A large police force is present at the Zappeion area.
Panos Kammenos, the leader of ANEL and Defence Minister, who is in Cyprus, is expected to return to Athens in the afternoon and will go directly to Zappeion.