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Anastasia Balezdrova 

In an interview with GRReporter the responsible for the programme of New Democracy and former Minister of Education and Transport Evripidis Stylianidis explained the reasons for the failure of the PASOK government as regards reforms and accused it of having deliberately put Greece under the supervision of the Troika.

Mr. Stylianidis, the public transport and taxi strike paralyzed Athens today. Civil servants have occupied ministries and government buildings for many days now and all professional groups will actually strike next week. Do you think the government is able to cope with the increased social pressure, given that the protesters have already invited it to resign?
 
I think that George Papandreou’s government has "sowed the wind and will reap the storm." It is faced with actions and behaviours that the PASOK party has cultivated over the past two decades, not only as a government, but also as the main opposition party. I would like to remind you that when the New Democracy government and Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis endeavoured to carry out serious reforms and privatizations, PASOK and its leader George Papandreou led large-scale protests. Typical are the pictures of the protests at the port of Piraeus, where our government signed the cooperation agreement with the Chinese company COSCO, and those of the trade unions protesting today outside Parliament against our attempt to unite the insurance funds and create a more sustainable social security system at a lower cost. Today, as governing party, PASOK is faced with itself. It is faced with the real problems and mistakes in the Greek economy and is paying the price for its own past behaviour. This, however, does not harm only PASOK, but the whole country.

The request for a change of government is very strong. It is not only the request of the opposition but of Greek society as a whole, because confidence in the government has already disintegrated. Nobody believes that today's government has the power to negotiate in a dynamic way to protect those with middle and low incomes in Greece and to achieve the results that our European partners and our lenders require in order to ensure an adequate flow of funds and to survive.
 
What do you think prevents PASOK from carrying out the privatization?

It has been two years since the government received a clear, strong message from the people, for it to take control. It promised that "there is money", but unfortunately, it merely struck a heavy blow at people with low and middle incomes. It failed to achieve a positive result in structural changes which would solve the problems in the Greek economy and administration and did not gain a single euro from privatizations. This indicates fear or government dependence on trade unions, which in my view, manipulate, control and guide about 70 per cent of PASOK voters. The government chose to sacrifice Greek society on the altar of some vested interests which it has "served" in recent decades. The fact that people who vote for PASOK are mostly members of closed trade unions scares the politicians from George Papandreou’s government towards decisive changes and reforms targeted mainly at privatization. This party has no faith in this ideology. In the past, it struggled against such changes and now, it has no power to carry them out. I think one of the main reasons for the sharp reduction in the government‘s efficiency is that it was elected to pursue a specific policy, but is now exercising a completely different one.