The planned privatization of Greece’s public electrical company DEI has fueled the fierce clash between the coalition government and the main opposition. With unionists preparing to escalate their strike actions, the government has threatened them with civil mobilization.
SYRIZA president Alexis Tsipras recently visited DEI power plants in the north of Greece and argued that the government is trying to pass its controversial bill through parliament «like a thief” and accused the New Democracy / PASOK coalition of “governing us for forty years and now they want to sell off the country’s public wealth as if they owned it”.
Mr. Tsipras has demanded a referendum be conducted regarding the privatization of DEI and has vowed to overturn the “national crime”, while stressing that his party will not recognize the deal.
On the other hand, the coalition government has claimed that the privatization will be beneficial for Greek customers and has noted that the privatization is amongst the 12 prior actions that must be implemented in order to continue receiving financial aid from the troika. Aside from the opposition and the striking unionists though, the government is faced with social repercussions, as local communities are not entirely convinced.
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and his Vice President Evangelos Venizelos appear confident that the changes they agreed upon will be sufficient to quell employee worries regarding insurance, employment relation etc.
Mr. Samaras, who is currently in Strasbourg, hit back and stressed that he would “not allow fanatic populists and the creators of false impressions” to interrupt the implementation of necessary reforms and claimed that the opposition’s accusation of selling off public wealth was “a bad joke”.
