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The speech of Papandreou's greatest rival for the leadership of PASOK and the current Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Evangelos Venizelos was full of pathos. "The support for the government of Lucas Papademos is equal to the support for Greece to remain in the eurozone," he said and promised that the Greek Parliament would adopt the necessary legislation before Christmas, even if it were to work overtime. To address the increasingly wide-spread concern that the involvement of private creditors in the recycling of Greek government bonds is not entirely voluntary, Venizelos said: "Our negotiations with the private sector for the PSI are the most successful and we will soon reach an agreement. It will not affect pensions. They will not suffer from it. In Greece, the private sector will play a very active role to enable the servicing of the Greek debt."

"We can overcome pessimism. The crisis is not economic but moral. The problem is the public mentality, clientelistic economy. I am tired of watching the Greek society mourning for its paradise lost," admitted the Minister of Finance, who has set four goals: 1) to return deposits in the Greek banking system, which is completely secure in order to resume the liquidity of financial institutions; 2) to ensure no one remains in a state of extreme poverty, we can help the poorest; 3) to regain the trust that we have lost as a society, 4) to convince the middle class that it exists.

"Now you understand why deputies should get allowances for hazardous work - because they have to listen to Venizelos at least once a week,"  was the expressive brief comment of the President of the far-right party LAOS, George Karatzeferis.