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Victoria Mindova 

There is a real threat to pensions and salaries in Greece due to delays and errors by the two largest political parties PASOK and New Democracy, assessed the leader of Democratic Alliance Dora Bakogiannis at a press conference to mark the first anniversary of the foundation of her party. According to her, New Democracy lacked internal dialogue and democratic processes for discussing the pressing issues that have prevented the right party from functioning properly. "I hope the logic for the good of the country shall reign," she said in connection with the latest dispute on giving written guarantee that political parties will be bound by the agreed economic policy due to the financial aid from Europe.

"One of the most embarrassing problems lately has been that the domestic dramas of the major parties (whether it is about heredity in PASOK or the lack of democratic dialogue in New Democracy) has put at stake the rescue of the country and the payment of the sixth tranche of the bailout."  Dora Bakogiannis reiterated several times that if the eight billion euros from Europe and the International Monetary Fund were not paid in cash soon, Greece would not be able to pay any salaries or pensions at Christmas. She said that in less than a month, the country would be facing the same dilemma as in May 2010, before the government of George Papandreou signed the first Memorandum.

"It is clear to everyone that neither of the two parties that are responsible for the present situation in the country is able to cope with the recovery process. They are not able to because they have trained their party armies in a different way. Because they gave promises which they cannot meet." Therefore, the young party believes that in the next few years, only coalition governments should govern Greece.

Bakogiannis recalled that at the outset of its establishment, the Democratic Alliance had urged the convening of a government of national consensus to take Greece out of the political and economic impasse. She supports today's coalition Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, but insists that information about the meetings of political leaders with the President of the Republic, Carlos Papoulias, and Papademos himself should be presented to the public. "Only through complete transparency and honesty can the political system regain the people's confidence," Bakogiannis said and urged the government to disclose in detail the deal for the new loan agreement from Europe, signed on October 26 this year.

Bakogiannis said that the way the measure of the labour reserve was implemented in order to reduce the public sector was wrong. She described it as catastrophic, because it was removing valuable professionals from public administration without any quality criteria. According to the leader of Democratic Alliance, the government has not done the most important thing yet: namely to sort out necessary and unnecessary governmental organizations and their employees. "We urge consideration on what is required by the state, where its participation should remain and which services can be delivered to private enterprises. Horizontal cuts without first changing the model of government are just destroying the state. "

She insisted that employees from all departments and public sector allocations should not be cut, but instead inefficient and unprofitable enterprises should be considered first. The state railway company OSE was given as an example. The company should be delivered to the private sector because, according to Bakogiannis, there was no sense in continuing to squander money for an organization that had generated no profit, while its maintenance cost one-two billion euros per month. "For each one unnecessary employee in the public sector there are three unemployed in the private sector. This is the ratio and the impact between private and public sectors’ employees."

Dora Bakogiannis said that the extra property tax should be cancelled as it has brought serious problems in paying electricity bills and she urged the government to offset the amounts from other sources, mainly through a more equitable taxation. She gave as an example the idea of ​​Horst Reichenbach for the immediate collection of eight billion euros in unpaid taxes. "We want to make the Greeks living in Greece as successful as our compatriots living in the most dynamic and socially just societies," Dora Bakogiannis shared her ambitions and said that this could not happen without serious reforms, carried out fairly.