Speaking to the Greek show of German TV Deutsche Welle, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of Greece’s main opposition party, New Democracy (ND), dubbed the referendum called last year by the SYRIZA government a ‘monument of populism’. Mitsotakis argued that even though he could not predict when a general election might be held, he believed the short-term cost of an election campaign was outweighed by the long-term positive effects on Greece as a whole. ‘I will not agree to enter into a coalition government with Tsipras, because we are separated by an abyss’, he said. Commenting on last year’s referendum called by the SYRIZA-led government ND’s leader said it brought Greece on the brink of disaster. Mitsotakis made it clear that he outrightly disagreed with the policies of high taxation adopted by the Tsipras government to achieve fiscal adjustment. ‘We have the highest tax coefficients from many European countries. Hyper-taxation does not add revenue to the budget, but has the opposite effect’, he claimed. Presenting his proposal for Greece to exit the economic crisis, Mitsotakis said he had tabled a plan for 2% surplus, instead of the current 3.5% target and a series of ‘aggressive’ structural reforms that would boost the Greek economy. On his efforts to regain the trust of other EU leaders, Mitsotakis said that he wanted his colleagues in the EU to get to know him and be reassured that he was not a man that swayed from one position to another in a matter of a short time.