Ex-minister Giorgos Katrougalos withdrew from the SYRIZA ballot after the uproar caused by his statement that if Tsipras took office he would raise the insurance contributions for the self-employed by 20 %.

Katrougalos’s statement caused great uproar and forced even the president of SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, to disapprove of the statements of the former minister and his partner to clarify in an interview that there is no provision in the SYRIZA platform to increase insurance contributions.

A few minutes after Alexis Tsipras’s dismissal of Giorgos Katrougalos was made public, the former SYRIZA Foreign Minister announced that he was withdrawing from the SYRIZA ballots. “I take full political responsibility for my position yesterday and declare that I am withdrawing from the electoral battle,” wrote Giorgos Katrougalos.

I am watching the theater performance organised by New Democracy on the occasion of my statement yesterday about the insurance contributions. I made it clear from the morning that I was referring to personal views of principle and not to the political platform of SYRIZA-PS, which are published here and…

— George Katrougalos (@gkatr) May 18, 2023

See last night’s statement by Giorgos Katrougalos about an imminent increase in insurance contributions for self-employed professionals by 20%, during a televised debate in which the Minister of Development Adonis Georgiadis also participated.