PASOK-Movement For Change leader Nikos Androulakis toured the western Athens suburb of Ilion on Tuesday.
Addressing party executives, but also speaking with shopkeepers and pedestrians, Androulakis criticized the government’s economic policy and its “supposed extroversion, and offering part-time jobs with 500 euros per month, instead of creating a lot of well-paying full-time jobs.”
On protecting primary homes, he said that the Pasok government’s 2010 legislation “saved many thousands of our fellow citizens’ primary homes in the years of the great financial crisis.” This law was later “snipped back by the SYRIZA government and abolished” by the current government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, he noted.
Androulakis also mentioned his party’s proposal for creating a pool of 150,000 homes available to low-income families for low rents, focusing on young couples, college students, and pensioners.
Speaking in favor of taxing banks’ excess profits, which, he said, arose from the broad gap between deposit rates and lending rates, he noted that “we have given billions from Greek taxpayers’ money to support the banking system.” It is astounding, he said, that the banking system does not provide liquidity to small and medium-sized enterprises, thus leading borrowers to hardship.
Referring to the deadly train collision at Tempi on February 28, Androulakis referred to the PM and main opposition leader, emphasizing that “instead of the cockfight between Mr. Tsipras and Mr. Mitsotakis, we call on them to immediately submit all the evidence from the National Transparency Authority to the court, to let Greek people know about those who are really responsible for the Tempi tragedy.”
He also clarified that in a possible coalition government after elections, his proposal was to find a person approved by all sides for the position of prime minister instead of Mitsotakis or Tsipras, as part of a framework of dialogue and agreement between parties. “I am not the one who will arrogantly say who the next prime minister will be” in a possible coalition government, he added.
SOURCE; ANA-MPA
