By Vassilis Kostoulas
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@VasKostoulas
Former Belgian prime minister and the head of the Europarliament’s liberal AL.DE grouping, Guy Verhofstadt, lamented the fact that the primary “source of ill” plaguing the Greek state, namely, clientelism, appears to continue unabated under the current Alexis Tsipras government.
In statements to “N” this week, the head of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) put the blame on both the Greek political system as well as the so-called “troika” of institutional creditors, which he charged merely demanded “numbers, numbers, numbers”.
“Reforms do not mean cutbacks and taxes, but a smaller public sector and less corruption; an opening of ‘closed professions’, truly private banks,” Verhofstadt said.
Asked about the ongoing refugee / migrant crisis that appears to have swamped the Greek government, the former Belgian PM proposed a double-pronged policy of fielding a European border security force and direct funding of refugee camps in Turkey.
Along those lines, he said he discerns a lack of leadership on the part of the EU, while at the same time skewering a standing Greek government refusal to accept a common European force to secure its borders.
