Galery

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I would like you to answer a question of mine that have been troubling me more than a year. When it became clear that New Democracy has decided to call early parliamentary elections, why did it choose to enter the race with the same party leader (Costas Karamanlis), who left no alternative to his party colleagues?

I am not sure I am the right person to answer that question. The only thing I can say is that I was strongly against the idea of early elections. I believed and still believe that New Democracy had to fight to the end to introduce the necessary reforms even if it meant it would lose the next parliamentary elections. I did not like at all the idea of a party hoisting the white flag in this way. To go to elections to lose them is beyond my logic. I say to lose these elections because it was perfectly clear from the moment they were announced. When we make mistakes, we have to admit them to ourselves first and then to respect the vote of the people who voted and to do whatever we can to correct these mistakes.

The new budget is already in Parliament. It is clear that 2011 will be another tough year for the Greek economy - the deficit should be reduced by five billion euros and the government is taking measures for 14.3 billion euros. Do you think we could do without the Memorandum of financial support?

I think that we could do without the Memorandum if pretty much wrong steps were not taken between October 2009 and April 2010 that brought us to the contract which we eventually signed this spring. I do not think the government itself knew what it signed at that time, which is proved by the subsequent phenomenon that individual ministers who have also signed the Memorandum of financial support do not want to put into practice what is agreed in it.

There are parts of the Memorandum that are in the right direction and others that are not. I think the budget for 2010 contains many of the stereotypes that brought us to the impasse we are today. For example, the fact that much of the budget revenues rely on indirect taxes but their collection do not bring the expected results. Another weakness is costs reduction which also lacks clarity on where the reductions will come. Our tax policy needs to be very seriously revised. I definitely think that the state's role should be reduced, but at the same time if we do not minimize tax evasion, which have taken monstrous size, we can never fix our home finance.

But I do not see the government to handle all these tasks. I think the Council of Ministers needs a very strict minister in tax matters, to deal exclusively with tax revenues and tax system reform. Because if you do not apply a constant and highly professional oversight of the revenue policy of the country we will be chasing targets but will never achieve them. Revenues will never be enough which will lead to a new increase in taxes to collect the missing of those who pay anyway. These increases will in turn lead to a deepening recession and so the vicious circle of crisis will be closed. I think that generally the budget for 2011, although there are some very promising measures to reduce government spending, will depend entirely on the ability of government to collect revenue. And because the state failed to do this effectively in the past 30 years under the plan, which it sets in the beginning of each year, I do not think it will do it in 2011.

It was announced the last week that uncollectible revenues in Greece for 2009 amount to around 36 billion euros. Is this what you are referring to?

Yes, that’s right. These are the 35 billion euros that George Papandreou tried to find before the parliamentary elections but now he knows that they are not so easy to be collected.

What do you think about the policy followed by the present Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change Tina Birbili?

I stand well with Minister Tina Birbili - I respect and value her. However, I disagree with some of the initiatives she has undertaken, but in general I can say I'm not afraid to support those decisions of hers that I think are correct. We have to admit she is brave as politician. Perhaps this is due to the fact that she has not been highly politicized before taking this post, which is apparent at certain points.

Many experts in the field agree that eco-friendly technologies are impossible to be developed and implemented on a large scale unless green power is profitable (more effective and cheaper). Do you agree with this statement?

It is relative that energy produced from alternative sources is more expensive. The energy produced from lignite coals, which contribute most to environmental pollution, at today's prices seems cheaper than that produced by wind power. If, however, we take into account all the environmental consequences of the use of lignite coals as well as the amount that a company has to pay to use this fuel, the price of energy produced raises immediately.