ND Congress - Samaras Talks Development, ERT & Then Suffers Meltdown (VIDEOS)

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told delegates at the New Democracy congress in Athens on Friday night that Greece is going to attract more investments sooner than expected, while he defended his recent decision to shut down the state public broadcaster ERT. Unfrotunately the premier had to interrupt his speech briefly to sit down, shocking all participants, because his unstoppable and relentless schedule over the past few days got the best of him. Other press reports claim that the PM is also suffering from a severe stomach virus.

Buoyed by the confirmation earlier in the day that the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) would pass through Greece, Samaras said that the deal proved that the “prophets of doom” were wrong. The Greek premier noted that gas provider DEPA, whose privatization was abandoned earlier this month, would also be sold soon.

On ERT, Antonis Samaras confessed that the conservative New Democracy and the PASOK party damaged the broadcaster by making political appointments but he emphasized that in either way most of the appointees were leftists. He even said that the decision to shut the TV and radio service down was the only way to deal with its “sinful” past.

      “You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs,” he told some 4,000 delegates, adding a warning for ERT employees that continue to broadcast from its headquarters that “sit-ins” would not be tolerated.

Samaras is due to give the closing speech at the congress on Sunday.

   
Speaking about ERT, almost a week after his party pulled out of the ruling coalition following a dispute over Prime Samaras’s unilateral decision to close down ERT, Democratic Left (DIMAR) leader Fotis Kouvelis slammed his former partners and appealed to the broader center-left to bolster his beleaguered party.

In a speech to his party’s central committee on Saturday, and while referring to the ERT closure, and other unilateral decisions by Samaras, the leader of DIMAR accused the Samaras of “despotism,” noting that his tactics had not promoted reform but the opposite. At the same time he indirectly accused PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos of exploiting the ERT debacle for his own party’s gain.

Questioned about Kouvelis in an interview with Sunday’s Kathimerini, veteran socialist and former Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos is rumored to have noted that Kouvelis “proved to be useless in the government and was not even capable of provoking a major political crisis.”

     “Kouvelis and his cadres didn’t want anyone to be fired from the public sector, ever,” Pangalos said. “That was their basic problem.”

Kouvelis called on “reformist, progressive, ecological, leftist and democratic forces” to come together in an alliance that would seek a “democratic and just Greece.” At the same time, he rebuffed speculation about DIMAR cooperating with the main leftist opposition SYRIZA, which he accused of following “dead-end policies”.

(Combined Reports - Kathimerini)