Marinakis to SKAI: The ‘victor’ in these elections was unity, common sense and truth

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Greece is starting to return to normality after “a great many sacrifices and patience but also very specific reforms,” government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said on Saturday, appearing on the SKAI breakfast television programme “Kalimera”.

He said that the mandate given to New Democracy and its leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis was so strong that “our only concern is implementing our programme, continuing to solve the problems and continue to be at the side of all citizens, whether they voted for us or not.”

“In these elections, I think, there was a victory of truth, a victory of common sense, a victory of unity,” Marinakis told journalist Giorgos Aftias.
Commenting on Alexis Tsipras’ resignation as the leader of the main opposition party, SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance, he said it would be good if “toxicity”, which he had failed to address within SYRIZA, and “saying one thing but doing another” also departed with him.

Marinakis said that New Democracy’s goal was a “comprehensive change of era” for Greece, taking back all that was taken during the years of crisis but also regaining unity as a whole. “This is one target above and beyond economics,” he said.

Referring to the “broadening” of ND, he noted that Mitsotakis, from his first moments as the party’s leader, had tried to engage people who were not necessarily involved in politics. Another goal, he added, was to build up the party’s credibility, to make sure that the promises made before elections were delivered afterwards. “In the coming years… we will set about implementing everything we said,” he added.

Marinakis said ND wanted a strong opposition, which will be harshly critical of the government and make its own proposals, provided that this opposition was “political” and an “opposition to the government, not the country.”

He said that ND’s programme was fully costed and the funding over the entire four-year term secured, while it depended on the great many reforms already passed during the previous four-year term that have started to go into effect.

“All the things we have said…arise from the fact that in very, very difficult years we succeeded, in a battle we all fought together, to increase the pie, to increase GDP. In fact, the latest figures of the Bank of Greece show that we will have almost certain – though these reforms must continue – growth in the next three years,” he said. This economic growth, combined with tax cuts will lead to higher salaries in the private and public sectors and greater employment, he added.
The spokesperson also discussed, relations with Turkey and an apparent thaw that was leading to dialogue, and migration, where he stressed that the prime minister and the government will battle hard to ensure that the borders are guarded and migration controlled, as well as working with other countries of the European South to bring about a “change of course” for the EU on this issue.

“An important change in the management of the refugee-migration issue that remains to be ratified is that the country will no longer have an obligation to keep an asylum seeker for 10 years but only 18 months,” he said, while noting that this meant dealing with the problem at its root, in cooperation with the countries that traffickers start from.

Concluding, Marinakis stressed that the government’s “opponents” are society’s problems and that the “dividends” of growth will be returned to society in the form of tax cuts, benefits and support.

“We won’t have any increase in taxes, only increases in salaries but always with thrift, without passing on debt to future generations,” he said.

Source: ANA-MPA