Greece will be a catalyst for developments in the tough negotiations.

With a single goal:

To reach a mutually beneficial solution for Greece and our partners.

Let us repeat:

Greece wants to service its debt.

If this is also the desire of our partners, they are welcome to the negotiating table to jointly decide how this debt will be made viable.

That debt which recently exceeded 180% of the GDP cannot be serviced.

This is what we are trying to make clear

The problem of the Greek debt is not one of a technical nature.

Nor is it a matter of technical implementation of a given set of decisions.

It is a matter of political nature and political decisions.

As long as our partners insist on austerity, the debt problem will be recycling and deteriorating.

If we agree that austerity is catastrophic, the technical solution for the reduction and the repayment will be found through negotiations and consensus.

It is not our intention to threaten the balance in Europe

We are the ones who want to restore the balance in Europe.

We are the hope for the necessary changes that need to be discussed and take place in Europe.

What the Greek government is seeking in negotiations with our partners is a new agreement on a “bridge-program” until June.

So that we have the fiscal space required by a sincere negotiation for debt restructuring and for a new development and cooperation program between Greece and its European partners.

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The new contract between Greece and Europe which will be reflected in a Medium Term Plan for National Reconstruction, respects the Eurozone operating rules, but does not condemn the Greek economy to eternal recession based on absurd and unreal requirements on primary surpluses, which are a different name of austerity.

I want to reassure the Parliament and the Greek people we steadily working towards a viable agreement with our partners.

And I am optimistic that we will succeed.

Because that agreement is at the same time a signal that Europe remains focused on its democratic principle and tradition of respecting the popular will.

Europe should not repeat the mistakes of its dark past. It should not lead an entire people into humiliation.

Never again should we live the era of the monsters. Never again should we feed into the hatred among peoples, but instead, promote understanding and solidarity. This is today the challenge for Europe.

In the first five months of negotiations with Europe we have before us a great challenge.

To vindicate the expectations of the Greek people for the radical reform of the State.

Because without this radical reform, even with the best possible deal for the debt, the problem will return.

The Greek people have given us a clear mandate for battle.

A battle against the long term ills of the Greek political system, a battle with the intertwined interests that build this state.

Because it was not us who build and managed this state of clientism and of waste.

And this is why, we are the ones capable of changing it.

To implement the country’s institutional reconstruction.

That reconstruction has already began by changing the structure of the government, as a first step towards rationalizing public administration.

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Our first unrelenting struggle that we will carry out at any cost is the struggle against corruption and the intertwined with the political system interests of the economic oligarchy.

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In this Context

We will immediately mobilize the Economic crime enforcement agency so as to scrutinize, as a priority, the list of big bank account holders.

1. the list of the Authority for Combating money laundering
2. The Lagard list
3. the Lichtenstein list

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There can be no institutional and productive reconstruction without a significant reform of the taxation system. The low tax revenue during the ‘90s and the 2000s was the main reason for the inability of the country to reduce its external debt. Even at the time, when the Greek economy was growing at around 4% annually, our debt remained pinned at 100% of GDP, i.e. it was increasing in absolute terms.

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What we need now is an agreement that will unleash the potential of the Greek economy and help to implement pluralistic economic activities in the energy sector, tourism, shipping, agricultural production, industry, manufacturing, communications.

Actions that will combine

* Small medium and large private initiative and incentives for foreign investment and interstate agreements within the framework of European rules

* with a strong public investment program that should not be included in the deficit, such as requested by our French and Italian partners

and finally with forms of social economy and cooperatives that would build a new model of economic activity based on networks and horizontal organization beyond the narrow context of free market competition.

Especially in terms of private initiative and investment I want to make clear the following:

The new government will support private investments that can play a key role in the productive reconstruction.

What the government will not do is to continue the crime of the sell-off of public assets to fund an unsustainable debt or to meet current financial needs. Enough crimes have already been made against the public interest.

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February 8, 2015