“You cannot operate with cronies!”

During the PASOK PG meeting, Vaso Papandreou launched an attack against the PM himself.

The former minister has so far been saving face for her party, since most of the speakers' stance is as if nothing has happened lately.

“You cannot operate with cronies”, she said characteristically, criticizing the fact that the PM has fully backed Papakonstantinou’s policy, which is basically the imposition of new taxes and wage cuts. She disputed the claims of Giorgos Papandreou about success in reducing the deficit, and attributed the changes to the fact that the government owes about 10 billion euros for various payments.

“It is the first time I am worried about PASOK and mainly about Greece. The situation is very crucial. It is up to us to determine whether our country will have the future the young generations want. Yesterday’s events, along with our policies, have brought us to this. The PG has backed you despite the severe dysfunctions of the government, and voted in favor of measures of unprecedented cruelty. Only the wage and pension cuts were imposed; an unbelievable mockery by the economy team for 18 months, which you have supported all this time. A year after the memorandum, we are in the same position. What exactly was our negotiation? We are not being informed and the result shows we are not negotiating properly. Obama did not suddenly fall in love with us.

We drove the country into a terrible recession. Instead of mobilizing the proper powers of our country, we managed to turn society against us. There is a general issue of security. The government cannot function under emergency conditions and you have to take some responsibility. You have to create a transitional government, and we should avoid elections if we can. In this new government you must change functions involving cronies, governmental committees and institutions. Otherwise we will be dragged into elections”, she said among other things.

Vaso Papandreou had shown her intentions since this morning. She led the collection of signatures for the PG meeting and was the only one inside the parliament who did not applaud the PM’s speech.