Galery

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He was determined to respond to the attacks of the opposition that the parties in the governing coalition were trying to conceal facts related to the investigation. "What concealment are you talking about bearing in mind the fact that the special commission had questioned 110 witnesses in the case? Anyone who was 50 metres away from any public institution had testified," he said in his anger.

The crazy ‘ping-pong’ that took place between Konstantinopoulou and Koutsoubas aroused the spirits of other parliamentary members. The chairman of the commission who was in a constant swordplay with Konstatinopoulou could not resist and started shouting from the rostrum: "You are the reason why the commission completed its work after three months’ delay. You tortured the witnesses. Now, let the parliament continue the debate."

The numerous words and heated debaters were unnecessarily wasted energy since the parties had already decided to sacrifice the former Minister of Finance. The story of George Papaconstantinou is greatly reminiscent of the old Bulgarian film "King for a Day".

When Papaconstantinou took the key position of Minister of Finance in 2009, there was great resentment in the ranks of PASOK. He was considered as a ‘paratrooper’ as he was chosen as a person close to George Papandreou and was not from the core of the socialists like Evangelos Venizelos. Venizelos himself was an outspoken opponent of Papandreou Jr. and lost the election struggle for the leadership of the PASOK party in 2007. His time, however, came when the government of George Papandreou, the son of Andreas Papandreou, failed with a bang in 2011.

The result of the "Lagarde list" saga is that the political system in Greece has failed to "take the head" of George Papacosntantinou and it seems that there are reasons for this. However, two issues have remained unresolved. The first is whether the former minister alone is the only one to blame for the outspoken inaction in the fight against tax evasion. The other is why nothing has been done to clarify whether the persons on the "Lagarde list" are scammers who are hiding money in a Swiss bank or if they are ordinary citizens with accounts abroad.