Lafazanis on Tsipras’ Ithaca: “You’re lying and rewriting history”

Former Minister of Super Ministry “Productive recovery, environment and energy”reveals, what was actually discussed in Moscowand refutes Tsipras story O “money and trash cans” allegedly from the words Vladimir Putin.

Panos Lafazanisformer Minister of Industrial Recovery, Environment and Energy in the first government Alexis Tsiprasin an exclusive interview PRONEWS and the journalist Thasos Gouriotis responds harshly to the book “Ithaca“and accuses the ex-prime minister of lying and trying to rewrite recent history.

Being one of key figures of the first SYRIZA cabinet and witnessed the dramatic events of the seven months that ended capital controls and the “heaviest” third Memorandum, Lafazanis insists: his testimony is necessary so that citizens understand how the country got to this point economic collapse and national humiliation – and what could have been avoided if political decisions had been different.

“The book is an attempt to justify failure”

Answering the question why, in his opinion, Tsipras wrote “Ithaca” Panos Lafazanis does not soften the wording:

“He made a very big mistake. Apparently he published the book to justify his past. But when you have to publish a book to explain recent events that society already remembers in general terms, it means only one thing: you failed. And if at the same time you open a front against almost all of your former comrades, this failure becomes simply disgusting.

It turns out that there was not a single worthy, not a single useful person next to you? If everyone was incompetent, as you yourself claim, then who did you manage and rely on?”

Gouriotis notes that in the book Tsipras actually shifts responsibility for the government’s failure onto his ministers and inner circle. According to Lafazanisthis approach is tantamount to political self-accusation:

“If you yourself say that three-quarters of your own ministers have failed and at the same time you throw epithets at them that are far from decency, then how could any kind of “successful” government have turned out at all? So you were the only one who did everything right, and everyone else just broke it? It doesn’t happen that way.

And then, when you need to “re-issue” your political identity through a book about the events of yesterday, it means that society already perceives your rule as extremely negative. You can’t rewrite this with a book.”

According to Lafazanisan attempt to present “Ithaca” as a political rebirth Tsipras doomed: “This is an attempt to restore the Tsipras brand.” But the mere fact that he is forced to try this through such a text shows: this is a 100% defeat. You can’t fill a book with things that are so fresh in your memory.”

Multi-portfolio “super-ministry” and the myth of the conversation with Putin

The journalist recalls the episode from the book “Ithaca”where the visit is described Lafazanis to Moscow and his conversation with Vladimir Putin. In version Tsipras the Russian president allegedly reacted ironically upon hearing the list of ministries under his jurisdiction Lafazanisand uttered a phrase about “money and trash cans” in relation to Greece. The former minister resolutely denies this.

Panos Lafazanis clarifies that when the first government was formed, it was given a unified “super-ministry” of Industrial Recovery, Environment and Energy, with additional areas of agriculture and industry. According to him, the very idea of ​​​​creating five such “hyper-ministries” was initially wrong:

“I don’t know who gave him the tip to gather five “super-ministries” in order to supposedly manage all government work through them, but it was a complete failure. I had to manage five complex portfolios at the same time. Formally, there were deputies and deputy ministers under me, but in Greek reality everyone still comes to the “chief minister”.

Everyone was coming towards me. And citizens, and employees, and interested parties. You tell them: there is also such and such, such a deputy, such a deputy minister. In response: “no, we are going to the minister.” How can this be sustained with five ministries? This could only work with a state apparatus that functions like a clock. But our minister was forced to carry out both political and administrative work.”

Regarding the described Tsipras episode in the Kremlin, Lafazanis gives a drier version: Putinseeing on paper the consolidation of so many portfolios in one ministry, he was really surprised by the amount of responsibility, but, according to Lafazanis, he did not utter any derogatory phrases against Greece and the Greek economy. He calls the “money and trash cans” story “pure fiction for dramatic effect.”

When everything went wrong: Varoufakis, the extension of the memorandum and the “hoax of the century”

A separate block of interviews is devoted to the first weeks of joint rule SYRIZA–ANEL. When asked when exactly the initial “holiday” mood changed, Lafazanis answers without pause:

“The atmosphere changed in the first week. Barely five or six days after the SYRIZA-ANEL government took office, the Yanis Varoufakis from the Eurogroup and says: “I have a big victory.” We naturally ask: what victory? And then we hear: “I achieved an extension of the program, that is, the previous memorandum, for another four months.”

Further, according to Lafazanisit turned out that we are talking not just about a technical extension, but about a package of obligations that actually consolidated the second Memorandum and prepared the way for the third:

“He returned not only with a four-month extension of the second memorandum, but also with additional conditions – with stricter requirements for the so-called “Hardouvelis email” and new measures of more than one billion euros. We then told him: “What have you done? We came to power with a promise to cancel the memoranda, and you bring us a continuation of the second, also with a superstructure to bring everything to the third?”

According to Lafazanisthis is where the “country-scale deception” and the destruction of trust in election promises began. He recalls that similar tactics to stop liquidity were previously used in Cyprusand there, according to him, the “European center” achieved the complete capitulation of the government.

“They have already done this in Cyprus, where a liquidity shutdown forced the authorities to accept whatever was dictated to them. At that moment we said: “Greece is not Cyprus.” But the steps that were taken then objectively led to capital controls and to the third Memorandum. The deception was huge and it came as a shock to society.”

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