Venizelos: "From Defense and on to war"

On a total different wavelength from that of his predecessor, Evangelos Venizelos laid the groundwork for “bridging” the consensus gap.

Mr. Venizelos appeared troubled about the situation. “I did not accept the position without hesitation. I leave Defense and go off to… war, the real war”, he stated. “I accepted the honourable and prestigious, yet challenging proposal of the Prime Minister to take up the positions of Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister. I did it cautiously, not without hesitation, because it is my patriotic duty”.

Consensus with the New Democracy party and the “Indignant” movement

Mr. Venizelos stated that he will fight for the real economy and said he will carry outhis duties “in the name of the Greek people who are the real managers of the economic crisis. Only with the people and the cooperation of society will we be able to pull ourselves out of the water and fight, regain our optimism even if this is engineered originally. I have every unemployed person in mind, every retiree whose pension has been reduced, every employee or every citizen, and my mind is focused on society's struggle and its indignation”.

He reiterated the call for consensus, dialogue, proposals and ideas with political parties, even the “Indignants” of Syntagma Square.

We have not been reduced to not seeking consensus, mobilization and commitment of all social and productive forces; the commitment of beneficial functions inside and outside the country. It is required that we recover social consensus. For the political forces that accept the European orientation, the similarities are striking, while there are only a few are striking differences.

Unrepentant Papakonstantinou

“I am proud of the work I leave behind…and I am happy that Evangelos Venizelos is taking over”, stated ex Finance Minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou. He stressed that “We were on the cliff’s edge but managed to keep ourselves upright on both a national and fiscal level”, and presented it as a success, even privatizations (which he never pulled off).

He acknowledged that there were mistakes, shortcomings and failures, and wished Mr. Venizelos “good luck”.