Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras admitted openly that he had given an order to Yanis Varoufakis to prepare a Plan B, for a possible Greek exit from the Eurozone. Answering to the question posed by the leader of PASOK, Fofi Genimata, regarding the entire controversy which rose with the information of a Varoufakis’s alternative of a parallel banking system and hacking of taxpayer data, Tsipras stood in defense of the former finance minister, admitting it was necessary to prepare for every scenario.
According to Tsipras, the government had to have an alternative plan because the European creditors were preparing and inciting scenarios for a possible Greek exit from the Eurozone. He noted that their unpreparedness in dealing with such scenario would have been utterly irresponsible on the part of Greece and that this plan, essentially, was a defensive strategy in case of an emergency.
“Of course I gave an order to Varoufakis to put together a team to plan for an emergency situation. He was to organize a defense plan. I would have come across as politically naïve had I not done that,” stated Tsipras in his response to Genimata, noting also that he should be accused in case they had not been ready to deal with an emerging situation, not because they were ready for everything.
Tsipras accentuated that instead of accusing the Government with the intention of causing a scandal, Genimata should ask the European Commission about its plan of thousands of pages for the scenario of Greece exiting the Eurozone. Greece’s ‘Plan B’, Tsipras was decisive, was only a defense plan to save the state in case Europe went on with its scenario of a Greek exit from the euro. He went on to say that Syriza did not plan to take Greece from the Eurozone, but did have an obligation to the people, to be prepared for everything that may be dealt to it by Europe.
“Don’t accuse us of secret plans. Why didn’t we realize that plan? If our goal was to exit the euro, why then didn’t we use the 63 percent of the “no” votes in the referendum to actually do that? You are talking nonsense,” said Tsipras.
The Greek Prime Minister attacked Genimata and PASOK by saying that another party, like PASOK, was not even trying in the negotiations to reach better conditions with the creditors, but accepted everything and now wants to undermine Syriza’s efforts to negotiatie. With a sharp tone, Tsipras said, if PASOK wants to uncover scandals, it would be better to look inwards, in its own ranks. In his attack Tsipras suggested that his former Finance minister Varoufakis, unlike his predecessors, did not hide lists of tax evaders, or unlike others, went to withdraw his money abroad.
M. P.
