One of the more prominent Cabinet members of the first Tsipras government in 2015 on Thursday – the third anniversary of a contentious referendum over what was billed as creditors’ “final proposal” at the time – said Athens was ready to print drachmas in the wake of the July 5 “No” vote.
Panagiotis Lafazanis, who held the wordy productive reconstruction, environment and energy portfolio up until July 17, 2015, angrily left ruling SYRIZA party when the coalition government capitulated to institutional creditors’ demands and signed the third memorandum bailout.
He later formed his own far-left political group, the “Popular Unity” party.
“Obviously, we would have printed them (new drachmas) in Greece…” he told the Athens radio station “Thema” on Thursday.
Asked about the post-referendum fall-out, Lafazanis said it was a “national tragedy; a major coup … whatever happened from then on, with the violation of the popular will, cannot produce any legal result. Everything that has happened since then is unconstitutional and illegal.”
The more radical members and supporters of SYRIZA left the party ahead of the snap September 2015 election.
The former minister and Communist Party (KKE) cadre also had bitter words for his one-time political boss, Alexis Tsipras, calling him an architect of the “coup”, along with Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, “who schemed and conspired in order to drown out the popular volition.”
“Both of them should have their names written with black letters in the country’s modern history as cynical putschists… at some point those responsible will appear in the dock to answer”.
