Galery

1

The long-awaited resignation of Deputy Minister of Finance Nadia Valavani, which had caused a stir over the past few days while the government kept arguing that they had received nothing officially, is already a fact. In a long letter to the Prime Minister written in a very personal tone, Valavani calls him only by his first name and states that on Friday night, she supported the negotiating group of the government with her vote, because she was "sure that there was no likelihood of the group reaching an agreement, it eventually would return and rely on the people."

She continues, "Even now, on Monday morning, I still believe that there will be no agreement and that the tactic of the known ruling circles in Germany is to totally humiliate the government and the country. Tomorrow and the day after, the parliament will vote on what was "agreed" until today, so to say, and again there would be no agreement, until this government falls and a new one is formed that is "betrayed" and "will go any lengths".

"But if our negotiating group returns with the commitments that we have rejected, with deadly measures that will face us with the same dilemmas during every monitoring process, namely a retreat or Grexit, it is impossible for me to continue to be a member of this government. Thank you for honouring me with your confidence (...) I want to believe that the struggle continues," she notes at the end of her letter.

Minutes before the letter was presented, the now former deputy minister had to refute the information that she had withdrawn her deposits from the branch of the National Bank of Greece in the city of Heraklion in Crete two days before the introduction of capital controls and the closing of Greek banks.

"All the money I have is in Greece. And today it is blocked like the money of all others, as a result of the bank holiday and capital controls," Nadia Valavani replied to the question tabled in parliament by New Democracy MP Leftheris Avgenakis.

He cited yesterday's publication of the regional information site notioanatolika.gr, according to which "a particularly popular minister in the government of Alexis Tsipras showed with her actions that she knew what would happen to the banking system two days before the event (...) In the morning of 25 June, the person in question called the manager of one of the five branches of the National Bank of Greece in Heraklion and requested the immediate redeeming of the term deposits held by that person and two of her relatives. The procedures were immediately triggered and a little later a bank employee brought the amount of almost 200,000 euro to the house of one of the minister’s relatives."

While denying the information Valavani said that she had no account in any of the banks in Heraklion, that her only bank account was in the National Bank of Greece and that she had not spoken for years with a manager of any bank branch in Heraklion and Athens.

However, more interesting is the fact that this was not the first time that Valavani had to explain the export of money abroad. A few months earlier, after the disclosure of property declarations of parliament members, MPs of New Democracy and PASOK had filed a request in parliament for the deposits held by Valavani in English banks. In particular, she had declared in her property declaration for 2011 deposits worth 363,879 pounds sterling and 452,930 euro.

She later explained that the money had come from the sale of a hotel that she had inherited from her father and last March she said, "I only have a small amount in a bank account abroad. It is smaller than the value of the first master's degree semester at an English university."

Commentators point out that her resignation today probably is not connected with her opposition to the agreement with creditors alone. One of the sharpest among the numerous comments on social networks was that by famous blogger Tsougdw, "She has 1,000,000 abroad, there are rumours about the amount that she has withdrawn, praying to no agreement. What a great revolutionary."

It is worth noting that in the halcyon years when SYRIZA was in opposition Nadia Valavani was one of the ideologues of the "I do not pay" movement that urged citizens not to pay tolls and property tax. Having been appointed Deputy Minister of Finance, she radically changed her position and made the famous statement that "the payment of taxes is a patriotic duty."