"Hands off, Olli Rehn"

Deputy Prime Minister T. Pangalos expressed his disagreement with the terms of political consensus set by Olli Rehn, while speaking on a famous TV channel.

Mr. Pangalos said that it is wrong of Mr. Rehn to state that democracy works best when consensus exists, and underlined that as presented by the media, the European official employs political terms while in his managerial position between the EC and the Greek state, which is wrong and makes things even more difficult than they should be.

“In any case, if you introduce political terms, we’ll just say ‘hands off’”, Mr. Pangalos added.

At the same time, Mr. Pangalos ruled out the possibility of further redundancies in the public sector, stating that employees will be evaluated through ASEP exams in order to become permanent. He pointed out that the government could alleviate the situation with a recruitment abatement and worthy employees that are constantly trained.

He added that the government resorted to the memorandum in order to avoid bankruptcy, while as concerns the fifth installment, he said that if we do not stick to the memorandum’s terms, nothing can be guaranteed.

He clarified that he believes that political consensus is a worthy system of government and criticized the opposition, stating that they are not the opposition a modern state deserves, but an opposition which says “no” to everything. He spoke out against early elections, while he also attacked the opposition further, stating that “the country will not fare well if irresponsibility prevails”.

He recognized that the revenue target has not been achieved, specifically when it comes to increasing it, which ultimately means that the government’s strategy towards combating tax evasion has not succeeded. He also mentioned that through privatizations many of the state functions can mean less cost for Greek citizens.