FinMin Tsakalotos strikes back at opposition parties, Varoufakis

Gazzetta team 22 Ιουλίου 2015 - 20:48

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos on Wednesday struck back at his critics, both from the parties of the opposition but also closer to home, in the form of his fellow SYRIZA MP and former predecessor Yanis Varoufakis.

"It is not true that the negotiation started now. We must not create 'good guys' and 'bad guys' in such a simple way, because the country will not go forward," Tsakalotos said, replying to Varoufakis' comments.

He was no less sharp with former coalition partners New Democracy and PASOK, whose governments had dominated Greek politics for decades before SYRIZA's election, responding to charges that the ruling SYRIZA-ANEL coalition was trying to create its own 'party army'.

"There are people in ND and PASOK that could write up four or five postdoctorates on the functioning of the clientelist state," he said, while he also accused the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) of "misreading" the crisis.

"Don't hand out absolution to ND and PASOK, who throughout the pre-election and post-election campaign cultivated the conditions for a bank run," he said.