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Victoria Mindova

We are the salvation of Greece, said Alexis Tsipras to G20 ambassadors. He had invited representatives of the strongest economies in the world to a meeting to convince them that the radical left SYRIZA is a modern party that will give new hope to bankrupt Greece. His main argument in his attempt to defend his party was that Greece could not emerge from the crisis with the leaders of the former government. He described the situation in Greece in the last two years as a modern Greek tragedy in three parts. Tsipras spoke of retribution, punishment and catharsis with main character SYRIZA.

"Our programme is not a programme for the exit of the country from the euro, but only for emerging from the crisis," insisted Tsipras. He accused the media of distorting the party's platform. He insisted that SYRIZA wants to implement a modern type of socialism that will not repeat the failed examples of the past. He talked about the importance of social justice, environment and gender equality that are the three pillars of the party, but did not go into detail about how he intends to tackle the most pressing problem in Greece - the economic crisis.

However, he insisted that when SYRIZA takes the power it will replace the Memorandum of financial assistance with a national recovery programme. It will be based on solidarity between the peoples of Europe, not on fiscal consolidation measures. He is sure that Europe is obliged to keep Greece within the euro, showing greater solidarity without requiring financial cuts. "If the same formula is still applied, there will be very bad consequences not only for Greece but for the euro area," the politician said, stating that this is a warning to avoid the catastrophe, not to blackmail, as his political opponents present it. Tsipras promised to reform the country and clear it from the corruption of party protectionism, but by relying on the public sector.
 
Ambassadors of the G20 countries were listening to tomorrow's potential prime minister of Greece with interest. They were taking notes, diligently trying to understand the context of Tsipras’ words. Although he basically stuck to what he had said last week when presenting the programme of SYRIZA, he was considerably more moderate in his words. It was not clear whether the ambassadors believed him. Journalists were asked to leave the room before the ambassadors take the floor with their questions and comments.