Nikos Androulakis: “The main opponent is ND. Mr. Kasselakis has taken another path. Have a nice trip! The marriage of same-sex couples is a human right” 26/01/2024 00:50 APE-MPE Athens, Greece 610 Greek

Item Number: 28223739

The president of PASOK-Movement of Change Nikos Androulakis spoke to ERTNEWS late at night about all the issues of the current political situation, harshly criticizing the government and SYRIZA.

At the same time, he defined the goals of his party in the European elections by proposing debates of political leaders before their holding, in order to hear the positions of the parties on the major issues, national and social.

“It will be confirmed that we will be fine. There is no ceiling. What did we expect, for the correlations to be overturned within a few months?”, he added with reference to the findings of opinion polls about the weak but steady rise of his party.

“There will be a strong pole of the center-left so that the ND has a strong opponent. We will open programmatic discussion for programmatic convergences. In the society. No deals under the table. Mr. Tsipras was talking about party mergers. Not me! “, he insisted.

“Our main opponent is the New Democracy,” said Mr. Androulakis, expressing fears that Mr. Mitsotakis is trying to turn the political dominance of the ND into a dominance over the institutions and the media. To build a party that will confront the extremes and not the center-left.

“I believe that the country should have a political system with a stable and strong center-left and center-right, so that there is political stability,” said Mr. Androulakis.

He launched a fierce attack on the leadership of SYRIZA. “I treated the new SYRIZA president with courtesy. He didn’t behave like that. I answered him in a similar tone. Mr. Kasselakis has taken another path. Have a good trip!”, underlined the leader of PASOK. He commented sharply on the proposal of SYRIZA executives to join the Group of Socialists and Democrats.

“The parties are not little suitcases, they have principles and a historical path”, emphasized Nikos Androulakis.

Regarding same-sex marriage, Mr. Androulakis stated that it is a matter of human rights and that at the Parliamentary Group meeting (at noon), he will not ask for party discipline, but will urge the PASOK-KINAL MPs to “behave as legislators, not as commentators on an important social issue. We will not vote by order,” he said.

He criticized the government and personally Kyriakos Mitsotakis arguing that he should not have rushed to bring up the issue, he should have opened the debate after the European elections, as there is anxiety about strengthening the Far Right and thus giving space to the extremes.

Regarding the attitude of the Church, Nikos Androulakis mentioned that its role is different from that of the state, which legislates through the Parliament.

The president of PASOK-Movement for Change declared positive to the establishment of non-state non-profit universities, on the condition of strengthening public universities, pointing out that there is a discussion about “non paper”, not about a specific legislative proposal of the government. At the same time, he characterized as “reprehensible events” the occupations by the decision of a few students.

“The government is doing too little, too late,” said the president of PASOK-KINAL on the issue of accuracy.

He referred to energy issues, to checks in supermarkets, to baby milk and emphasized that if PASOK were in government, it would not say like the government that the market is self-regulating, since on the contrary it tends towards speculation.

Strengthening DIMEA and the competition commission, a single consumer authority are some of the moves that should have been made, while VAT should have been reduced on basic products, he ruled. The market is unregulated, insisted Mr. Androulakis.

He repeated his proposals for dealing with punctuality and the housing crisis.

Regarding the postal vote, Mr. Androulakis stated that PASOK is open to the discussion after the European elections to apply to the parliamentary elections as well, while criticizing the Minister of the Interior, Niki Kerameos, for being surprised by the controversial amendment.