"I do not consent to mistakes; we will vote for what we think is right"

Taking the stand at the Economist conference today, New Democracy president Antonis Samaras gave a harsh reply to the EU for their inelegant intervention, as he called it.

"The country has a constitution as well as institutions, government, opposition and dignity. Furthermore, it appears that there are calmer tones from Brussels in this inelegant intervention that is not consistent either with Europe or with Democracy. And in any case, we are not negotiating the constitutional order of our country, nor are we discussing it. And I am sure, everyone agrees on this. I will not say anything further, nor do I have to…".

Samaras clarified his position on the matter of consent by saying: "Nobody has the right to blame their failure on another. We disagreed with the governmental policy last year and we warned about its failure. And now that our criticism was proven to be correct, now that more and more admit their failure, now we have to consent to pursuing a mistake? The opposition is not here to consent to governmental mistakes, but to formulate alternative solutions".

Samaras said the basis for the country's exit from the crisis is the proposal he submitted in Zappeion for the restart of the Greek economy, which has to implemented as a whole in order to be successful, and specified that: "It will be of no use if not adopted in full, if there isn’t an overall restart along with the creative shock. But the government does not accept this. It accepts "other things" as they claim. But what can we do with them? They are no good without it". However, he clarified that "we will vote for the individual points on which we agree, as defined by the parliament and by logic. But we will not vote for the continuation of the wrong recipe in its entirety, and will not cease to criticize and warn that it is hopeless".

Samaras said that not only is the governmental implementation policy wrong, but also the memorandum as well, and this is why it ought to be changed. However, he did clarify that he does not disagree with the objectives but with the  manner in which the Troika is implementing them, which leads to an impasse. And he insisted on the renegotiation of our debt in order to soften the conditions, stating that he is not asking for a favor but an opportunity to get the country out of this crisis, as was the case with Ireland and Portugal.