Venizelos: "Only PASOK has a realistic and responsible proposal"

In a completely pre-election-like speech, the new PASOK president Evangelos Venizelos appeared before the formal meeting of the Parliamentary Group, after his election to the leadership of the Movement.

“PASOK, the democratic party, has much greater strength than one can imagine. We lost our presumption of innocence. We need to regain everything from the beginning”, he stated as an introduction to his speech.

Mr. Venizelos tried to instill optimism and assure members that better days are coming. As he said, “the memorandum must be combined with our own regeneration project”. According to Mr. Venizelos “everything is judged by whatever each person is taking it upon themselves to do, one who has the will and ability, who tells the Greek people the truth”. Formulating political questions very much like in an election campaign, he stated that the issue is “who can steer the country politically, negotiate with efficiency and reliability”.  Turning against ND, he wondered “what happened to the notorious renegotiation after the elections", and he accused the party of behaving like a party of past times and being afraid of the political cost. “It did not support us for months…The citizens are aware of what they are facing. ND has a hypocrite’s stance, wants to be both in and out at the same time. On the other hand, the rest of the left-wing positions are not realistic. There is only one realistic, responsible and socially sensitive proposal, which is PASOK”. He concluded by stating: “We ask for an independent Greece, not a clear majority as some claim”.