Today, the Parliamentary Representative of PASOK-Movement for Change was invited to the program “Mismatches” of the TV station SKAI with the journalists Yannis Tsounos and Christos KoutrasDimitris Manzos.

On the occasion of the start of the discussion of the draft law on same-sex couples, D. Manzos reiterated that “from a position of principle we have been for years, statutory and programmatically, in favor of the legalization of the civil marriage of same-sex couples and the adoption of children on the condition that, as it applies to heterosexual couples as well as to same-sex couples, the best interest of the child will be ensured. As long as the draft law ensures these two parameters, we will be positive in principle.”

He stated, at the same time, that there is no question of party discipline, as “there is no need for PASOK, after decades of pioneering social reforms, to prove who it is. We do not submit our credentials to Mr. Mitsotakis, nor do we grant him and his fellow travelers the right to have a monopoly, as they claim, on reforms.”

Commenting on what Mrs. Evi Christofilopoulou said, earlier in the same show, Dimitris Manzos noted:

“I would say, whoever has made a respectable choice to align himself with another party and another political leader, it is absolutely respectable what he says to justify his position. But with the government and opposition past of PASOK, no one has any right to play.

Mrs. Christofilopoulou also knows with President the late Fofi Gennimata and Nikos Androulakis what kind of opposition is practiced by PASOK. And PASOK has absolutely nothing to do with “no to everything” and populism. Likewise, it is not reform to want to change universities with non-paper and leaks. When PASOK reformed the universities, it did so after a year of dialogue. We did not leak and non paper. Are the blue-collar children in ERGOSE, OSE and on the trains, the station master and all the delay in remote control contracts that cost the lives of so many fellow human beings meritocracy? Is what the New Democracy has demonstrated self-critical in terms of wiretapping, the rule of law, attacks on independent authorities?”

Asked about squatting at universities, the Parliamentary Representative of PASOK-Movement of Change noted that “the students have very solid and serious requests to protect the public university with serious funding and treatment of the pathologies. However, you do not tear down the public university, nor leave it open to competition. Children are also those who will ensure and guard the freedom of the university. Therefore, we must find ways of protesting that will not undermine it. We are in favor of the open, free university”.

Dimitris Manzos made it clear that in PASOK-Movement of Change they will not wait for the bill to come forward with proposals for education and spoke about the need “to open the debate about the public university for its funding and support. And then by consensus, with exhaustive dialogue, mainly in the context of the constitutional review of Article 16 of the Constitution, to be able to talk about non-state, non-profit universities.

To regulate an anarchic market with some impersonating universities without academic criteria and conditions, selling degrees. However, what Mr. Pierrakakis is doing is not what we are discussing now. Annexes are something completely different from what we need.”

“From the beginning we say that we are in favor of free and open universities. For a public university that must remain at the forefront as a driver of social mobility, and for this we should all strive. First the students with their mobilizations and then we the political parties with our proposals”, concluded the Parliamentary Representative of PASOK-Movement for Change.