The answer to the major challenges in the EU and also to the problems facing our country can only be the support of the Left, underlined the Alexis Haritsis in the cross-channel press conference he gave ahead of the European elections, asking for the support of citizens in the New Left which wants to fight “to return the content to politics in terms of protecting the interests of the social majority”. He noted that the crises facing Europe today are of an existential nature (peace, climate justice, the rise of the extreme right, the democratic deficit and social marginalization).

To the question about cooperation after the European elections, but also about whether “you have already agreed with PASOK on something the next day”, Mr. Haritsis commented: “What if we have agreed with the PASOK; It is not the first time that in the pre-election period we see scenarios and fake news”. He said that “PASOK’s leadership as well as SYRIZA’s leadership are part of the problem at the moment and not the solution to be able to have a serious, combative, reliable, convincing response to Mr. Mitsotakis’s right-wing dictatorship”. “The solution is neither the lifestyle of Mr. Kasselakis, nor the restoration of the old PASOK of Mr. Androulakis, but a serious program proposal that will respond to the existing needs of society,” he argued. He emphasized that “we were born within the left, for us the left is not a flag of opportunity, it is an attitude of life and we will continue to exist and practice politics from the lines of the left”. He added that “from now on we are obviously interested in how the country will be governed and that the right-wing government of Mr. Mitsotakis should be disapproved and finally fall. In this sense, obviously, the logic of collaborations and partnerships and the attempt to form wider convergences, is a field in which we are interested in playing a role and being the protagonist”. He emphasized that, however, the European elections are ahead, where the New Left wants to strengthen “so that it can play a role from the point of view of the left in the developments of the next day”.

The president of its KO New Left he stated that “society needs a political proposal that will respond in left-wing terms to today’s great challenges and this cannot be done in lifestyle terms nor with a politics of empty content”. He said, among other things, that “obviously there are living forces in both PASOK and SYRIZA which must be freed from a logic and a policy that is dead-end and with which we can certainly communicate and form convergences the next day”. He added that the most important thing is to talk to living forces of society that are not currently being expressed by the current political forces of the wider space of the center-left.

Asked what his opinion is about a possible initiative by Alexis Tsipras in the space of the center-left, Mr. Haritsis replied, among other things, that “a debate that tries to discover that Messiah who will appear on earth and defeat Mitsotakis”. “The right will not be defeated by any Messiah, the right and the Mitsotakis government, which follows a dangerous and destructive policy for the country, will be defeated by a serious political plan, a serious program from a leftist and progressive point of view that will respond to the challenges it has that Greek society faces today”.

Speaking about the necessity of a political plan totally opposed to that of the ND, Mr. Haritsis strongly criticized the government’s economic policy, commenting that “the answer to accuracy cannot be the letters to Mrs. von der Leyen, but a reduction of indirect taxes and especially VAT, support of real disposable income above the levels of inflation and substantial regulation in the market”. He said that “the attitude of Mr. Mitsotakis is insulting and embarrassing for Greek society, he mocks us to our faces. Now two weeks before the European elections he remembered the bad multinationals and their unfair practices and said to send a letter.” She accused him of “having made the conscious choice from the first moment to take advantage of this crisis and use it to support his powerful friends, but at the same time he is also forming conditions of society for a third”. In the same context, he argued that “for the social majority, the development of Mr. Mitsotakis is an illusory dream”.

With reference to the tax positions of the New Left, he commented pointedly towards SYRIZA that “we will not follow the beaten track to caress ears, so we will not say that the solution at the moment is generally and vaguely the horizontal reduction of taxes for everyone”. “What we are saying is that we need a fair distribution of the burdens”, “we need a tax policy that will be fair, that will reduce indirect taxes, that will make the rich pay, that will abolish the tax exemptions that the Mitsotakis government has passed in droves for so many years and which will distribute the burdens in such a way that it will not give incomes of 100,000 and 200,000 tax breaks, as Mr. Kasselakis’ proposal does.” “We will not compete with the right in an auction of tax cuts for everyone, including the rich,” he commented.

Mr. Haritsis spoke of Mitsotakis’ “adventurous and dangerous foreign policy for our national interests”. He said, among other things, that this is based on a new super-armament race and that the New Left calls for a shift to a multidimensional foreign policy based on humanitarianism, international law and national interest. “It is devastating that the Mitsotakis government still refuses to proceed with the recognition of the state of Palestine,” he said.

Regarding the issue of the green transition, he said that every transition has winners and losers and that is why the New Left speaks in terms of climate justice. He emphasized that “the green transition can only be sustainable in terms of social justice” and that “we want a green transition with agricultural production, we want the primary sector to be supported and we want them to pay for the transition that they are currently profiting from this transition, as it is the large multinational groups in energy and mining companies”.

Mr. Haritsis said that the New Left’s role is to bring up issues that are taboo, such as the issue of church-state separation. “In my opinion, it was a mistake of the SYRIZA government, and I say this self-critically, that we did not proceed with the separation of state and church. When the relevant attempt was made, we came close, but it was not successful”, he commented.

Asked to respond to SYRIZA’s accusation against the New Left that it is not in line with the values ​​of the left to keep the 11 seats in parliament, L. Haritsis said that “in the elections, the MPs are voted on the basis of program and positions and the seats belong to the left , belong to a specific political program and plan”. He commented that he does not remember a similar discussion taking place when, in previous years, MPs from other parliamentary areas came to SYRIZA.