The country needs a strong, serious, reliable opposition, which will be the next government in the next national elections, stressed the president of PASOK / KINAL, Nikos Androulakis, in his speech this evening, in the port of Thessaloniki, calling on the voters, even if in the previous national elections they supported another party, to vote for his party in the European elections, on Sunday.

“PASOK is strong here united” said Mr. Androulakis and continued: “This time the Greek people have many reasons to support the effort we are making. The first reason is because our country needs at this time a strong, serious, reliable opposition, which will also be the next government in the next national elections. An opposition, progressive, reliable, programmatic and not the opposition gift to Mr. Mitsotakis, the opposition of tik tok. Politics in the foreground, with society in the foreground.”

Voting in the European elections should be a “message to arrogance, a message to impunity,” he stressed.

Mr. Androulakis stated that his party “is fighting perhaps the most critical battle of recent years”: “It is not a party effort, it is not a party confirmation for me, it is a question of democracy, it is a question of progress, it is a question of having a strong reliable opposition next Sunday night. It is the only way to have a political threat that will force the ND to stop scorning the problems of the Greek people.”

“Can SYRIZA with Mr. Kasselakis play this role today? With what credibility?’ asked the president of PASOK. “Are they talking about a fair tax system? How can you be credible when you propose a fair tax system of progressive taxation, but at the same time you have made millions from offshore and tax havens? Credibility in politics is to match your words with your actions and works. So here, we are not discussing the whereabouts of Mr. Kasselakis, because we are gossiping. There are institutions of transparency from the Hellenic Parliament. He should have, like every political leader, every MP on his own, go and file it in the first place.”

The president of PASOK, on ​​the other hand, argued that Mr. Mitsotakis is a champion of unreliability, as he claims that he wants to fight inequalities, while they are increasing and real wages and pensions are collapsing due to accuracy. He noted that his party is a reliable opposition, with proposals, “because we have political ethos, a modern program and we don’t say populism” and argued that when Mr. Mitsotakis refers to the opposition, it is easier for him to talk with SYRIZA and not with PASOK, because “when he talks to PASOK, his two feet fit into one shoe…”.

Mr. Androulakis underlined that in 24 of the last 36 months “we have more accuracy than the EU average” and that with the latest figures, the country was third in profits and penultimate in wage growth. He wondered what happened in the fall of 2022 and while headline inflation was going along with food inflation, suddenly “does headline inflation stabilize and the oligopoly profiteering party begins?”

“From the fall of 2022, a huge and profitable game is steadily taking place on the backs of all the Greek people with millions of profits for the oligopolies,” he noted.

Mr. Androulakis repeated PASOK’s proposals for social housing, housing, the national health system, the reduction of VAT on basic products, the fairer taxation of bank profits and dividends above a threshold, the institutional interventions for the checking the accuracy of the energy, climate change proposals and the resources of the green transition, so that it becomes the business of the poor and the small and medium classes and not just the few and powerful. Especially for national issues, he noted that they should not be partisan, or instrumentalized, and added that he is waiting for an answer on the country’s position at the UN in the resolution on Srebrenica Day. Regarding the Prespa Agreement, he stated that he had warned about the lack of a monitoring mechanism for its implementation, while on the other hand he criticized the attitude of SYRIZA which requests the ratification of the three memoranda by the Parliament: “That is why I am calling from Thessaloniki, every Greek woman and every Greeks, every progressive person, whatever party they voted for in the last national elections, next Sunday evening let us unite our anxieties for a better life, for a better Greece…to build the great, strong, democratic faction that will is the winner of the next national election.”

The president of PASOK said that a vote for ND means a vote for maintenance, for the EPP that “imposed the harshest austerity in the EU”, while a vote for PASOK and the socialists means “a vote for the Europe of solidarity, of common financial tools to reduce inequalities”, but also an economy with an “economic fund of European sovereignty” which will allow investments that left for China and third countries to return to the EU.

The president of PASOK noted that lately Mr. Mitsotakis and the EPP claim that they have a “front with the extreme right” and he wondered “what front do they have”, stating that they did not co-sign the text signed by other Euro political groups, which states that “any if it is the result of June 9, no collusion with the extreme right”. He also referred to an earlier statement by Mr. Mitsotakis about Ms. Meloni, whom he said was “not even Le Pen”, noting, however, that the Italian prime minister had previously said of Mussolini that he was “the most important Italian politician of the previous century”.

“I hear ND representatives saying that the extreme right is a problem in Greece as well. Problem for whom? For them; Will we forget the day they worked closely with Velopoulos to beat up the independent authority and together try to cover up the wiretapping scandal? So who is empowering the far right?” asked Mr. Androulakis. “And of course, let’s not forget that every vote for SYRIZA is a vote for the party of the European Left, which is against the European army and the common foreign defense policy.”

The president of PASOK underlined that “abstention, aversion to politics and turning to the extremes” have to do pan-European, with “insecurity, climate, geopolitics, economic, social, labor” and to this insecurity, the socialists respond with policies to strengthen the welfare state and reduce inequalities.

“For a Europe, where solidarity is not only the euro, the currency, but also tools that defend all the insecurities of today’s European citizens and, most of all, of young people. This is what social democracy means….” said Mr. Androulakis.

The president of PASOK also referred to the projects in Thessaloniki, noting how the poor design of the flyover inconvenienced the citizens, emphasized that the city needs the metro and the strengthening of the OASTH, underlined the need for more greenery in the city and supported the regeneration of the beach front through the creation of a single management body, with the participation of the self-government.