“The distinction between the Right and the Left remains valid and strong and has not faded,” said the Minister of State in a discussion at the Economist conference Makis Voridis, referring to the ideological currents that correspond to the two political trends.

He underlined, however, that at the present stage there is a “defeat of the ideas of the Left” at the domestic, European and global level.

Mr. Voridis brought a series of policy examples, such as the positions on immigration, on anti-crime policies, on private universities, on business taxation, on the economy, where, in his opinion, it has changed in recent years the perspective of the citizens and the “ideological hegemony of the Left” has receded.

“What is defeated are precisely these ideas. If you said twenty years ago that there should be restrictive immigration policies, you were a fascist, far-right, etc. Today, these restrictive immigration policies are the mainstream in Europe. This is what Macron, Mitsotakis, and the Italian Prime Minister are discussing,” Mr. Voridis said, among other things, and added:

“So, what was completely acceptable fifteen and twenty years ago and was identified with the ideas of the Left, today throughout Europe is absolutely a minority and is becoming a minority in Greece as well.”

Mr. Voridis noted that, for this reason, he is not just talking about a political defeat of SYRIZA, but a “strategic defeat of the ideas of the Left” and, addressing the SYRIZA MP Nikos Pappa present at the conference, he emphasized:

“Precisely because you don’t have a political defeat on your hands, but you have on your hands a strategic defeat of the ideas of the Left, the issue you have is much more complex and that’s why you will see down the road that it is not being addressed by a change of leadership and I am not going into in discussing what you chose. I say that it is a more complex issue, whether you chose Ahtsioglou or Kasselakis, you are in deep strategic trouble”.

“Therefore, the strategic problem is not whether Efi is better, or Stefanos is better. The strategic problem is that they no longer like the ideas of the Left,” continued Mr. Voridis, and added:

“This is a victory for conservative ideas, I don’t believe in definitive victories, this is a dialectical struggle that has existed for years and will be carried out systematically, but in the current historical cycle it seems that it is something that is happening in Greece and is happening all over Europe – it can be seen from the dominance of the EPP – it is carried out to a large extent, with great intensity in the USA, so it is something that concerns the world”.

Mr. Voridis added that, in his opinion, these dividing lines between the Right and the Left will remain strong because “they have very deep and strong theories behind them”, however much they evolve and that they will not be replaced by discrimination of the “system-anti-system” type, because they occur occasionally, such as e.g. the “memorandum – anti-memorandum” distinction and expire at the same time “with the end of the great disputes, the stakes of the moment”.