Euclid Tsakalotos described what has been happening in SYRIZA in the last few days as “sad phenomena”, speaking on Tuesday morning on SKAI and the program SIMERA, adding that the 11 who chose to leave and create the New Left were justified

“You can’t be in a party where Olga Gerovasili says ‘we stay but don’t divide’, it seems like a party that is fanatical”

“I understand that the results of this conference show that Alexis Tsipras lost, his intervention was not correct due to timing. Mr. Kasselakis won on points. He seems to have a large following, a base of people, and he says he will ”change everything”. On the other hand, the executives were strengthened politically”

Regarding Alexis Tsipras’ reference to him, he commented: “I answered him, it was contradictory from one moment to say that everything is going wrong, that the party is a mess, and then to say that we left because we lost, we left because it was a party that was not constituted”

“Tsipras, with his intervention, wanted to overthrow Kasselakis”

“Alexis’s intervention did not help to have a more meaningful discussion, personally I understood that he wanted to bring down Mr. Kasselakis, but not to return himself. You can’t hold a conference and not say why SYRIZA reached 18% and had a credibility problem, why the anti-SYRIZA current strengthened, this had to be discussed”, he stressed

“Our line is beyond alliances”

“We at New Left are asking the people of SYRIZA who may be sad to listen to us, to see that there will be a substantial political discussion, we have things to say to society, we are addressing the whole world, our line is beyond alliances. For example, we are actually saying that a great alliance must be made with producers and consumers,” he said

Why we say no to non-state universities

“When asked why they disagree with the bill on non-state universities, he explained: Non-state universities do not ‘answer’ several issues, such as that we have the lowest teacher salaries in Europe, that we are the worst in student care. Public universities will not be upgraded.”

Finally, he wondered: “If universities are non-profit making, why would they help competition?” So, are they going to be ‘muff’ non-profits, or are they going to tell us that ‘we want entrepreneurs to make a profit’, or are they going to have to explain to us why they think that non-profit universities will bring competition since there is no profit element?”