The provisional Prespa agreement to resolve the long-standing fYRoM “name issue” separating Athens and its northern neighbor was at the center of yet another acrimonious clash on Tuesday in Greece’s Parliament between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and main opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, during a debate nominally held over the draft 2019 budget.
Mitsotakis, the head of the center-right New Democracy (ND) party, reiterated his call for a snap election, with Tsipras challenging him to table a no confidence motion in Parliament. The political barometer in thrice-bailed out Greece is expected to rise even further in the coming months, as a general election will be held next year.
Tsipras initially rejected the opposition’s charges of “election gifts”, entailed in this month’s “social dividend”, expected to dole out from 200 to 1,200 euros to low-income and needy beneficiaries in the country, saying these are “not gifts, but necessary breathers”.
He also boasted of his government avoiding a pre-legislated reduction in monthly payments to up to a quarter of pensioners in the country, while even promising that 620,000 retirees in the country of roughly 11 million residents will see increases next year.
Mitsotakis, in his statements from the podium, was scathing, charging that “all of your policies are merely a fraud … after four years, society knows that your course ends at the ballot box.”
Referring to the contentious Prespa agreement signed by the current coalition government with the corresponding one in Skopje, led by PM Zoran Zaev, Mitsotakis said Tsipras is silent, as opposed to his junior coalition partner, DM Panos Kammenos, who is vocally against the pact but still remains in the Cabinet and maintains the government’s majority in Parliament.
“Mr. Zaev is celebrating because he won what no other Greek government would surrender in th past: a ‘Macedonian’ language and ethnicity … when over the past 27 years six prime ministers said no, you (Tsipras) say yes… You traded the Skopje issue (fYRoM name issue) with the preservation of pension (rates),” Mitsotakis said, in his most stinging remark of the session.
He also countered Tsipras’ points over the “social dividend” and preserved pension rates by pointing to repeated reductions since 2015, hikes in social security contributions and an avalanche of imposed direct and indirect taxes since 2016.
“You policy is not in favor of some or opposed to others, it was against everyone … you taxed whoever you found, in order to keep them as hostages to (welfare) benefits. Your excessive primary budget surpluses, Mr. Tsipras, are the deficits in the pocket of every Greek; you’re playing the part of the big spender with other people’s money,” the poll-leading Mitsotakis said.
