Yiannis Dragasakis, a prominent member of the anti-bailout party, says that the Greeks should not be punished for their democratic choices and reiterated Syriza’s call for a European debt conference
Syriza’s Yiannis Dragasakis told the weekend edition of Austria’s Der Standard newspaper (link in German) that a government formed by Syriza will not act unilaterally, but warned that the Greeks will not remain passive if they are blackmailed by the country’s creditors.
“If our country is blackmailed we won’t just endure it passively. It would be the Greeks who would be getting blackmailed because of a democratic choice they made,” Dragasakis – one of the moderate voices in the party – told the paper and wondered how people would react in other European countries, like Spain and Italy, to ‘such undemocratic behaviour”.
“Who would benefit from all this? Europe or the far-right and Marine Le Pen?” he asked.
“For this reason we will not take unilateral action” .
Harsh austerity under the terms of Greece’s bailout package have led to a soaring unemployment rate and the shrinking of the Greek economy by 25%.
Syriza wants at least half of the Greece's €240 billion bailout loans be forgiven but countries of the eurozone have ruled out another debt restructuring for Greece, with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble saying that it was “out of the question.” Some analysts at home and abroad, and opposition parties in Greece, have warned that a Syriza government – the country’s first ever leftist one – could lead to a Grexit.
Syriza has dismissed the warnings as scaremongering and Dragasakis said Europe must decide what sort of Europe it wants to be.
“The question is what sort of Europe do we want? Should we move in a direction leading to disaster for both sides?,” he asked, adding that the country’s debt burden is simply ‘unsustainable” .
“The markets don’t trust us, no one can carve out the way to growth, he said, and insisted that, if there is agreement that Greece’s debt is indeed unsustainable, then negotiations will start.
“We will bring our ideas and proposals but will also to listen to what the other side has to say,” he told the paper that tipped him as a possible finance minister in a Syriza government.
He added that growth is key to getting the country out of the crisis and that the repayment of Greece’s debt should be contingent on it.
If there is a high growth rate, he said, the quicker the loans will be repaid – as was the case with the London Agreement on German External debts, a debt relief treaty in 1953 between the Federal Republic of Germany and creditor nations.
“If we can all agree that the limit of the public debt should be at 60% of GDP then we need a European plan which would allow member states to reduce their debt,” he said, adding that Syriza insists on a European Conference on debt.
“If it is not possible to convince our European partners on this, then we will have to find a solution on the Greek debt”.
Dragasakis referred to the cases of Argentina and the Ukraine which went bankrupt with a much lower debt percentage.
“What is important are the growth prospects and whether they can withstand higher debt,” he said.
Amid signs that the political uncertainty is having an adverse impact on the economy, Syriza maintains a steady lead in opinion polls with a survey published by Sunday’s To Vima newspaper giving the leftist party a 3.1% lead over ruling New Democracy, slightly up from around 2.5% earlier in the week. In a separate poll published in the party-affiliated Avgi newspaper, its lead over New Democracy is at 5% down from 8% a week earlier.