Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis addressed an election rally in the northern city of Serres last week stressing that unlike the main opposition PASOK party, his ruling New Democracy party remained steadfast on the path of responsibility.
“I personally feel a heavy debt towards the present and future of our country,” Karamanlis said, adding that “Greece and the Greeks are my thought and my concern and my only care. It is the national interest. This is what I have done throughout my entire political course and this is what I am doing now and this is what I shall always do.”
The prime minister criticised all that PASOK leader George Papandreou said about the Burgas-Alexandroupoli oil pipeline stressing that “we reject all that the leader of PASOK claims about the Burgas-Alexandroupoli pipeline. His view that this pipeline supposedly serves the interests of the Russian side is inconceivable and peculiar. One thing is certain and that is that it deals a blow at the country’s interests.”
He also called on PASOK to clarify the “half-words” that it has been saying recently regarding the issue of the name of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and addressed a message to FYROM’s leadership, saying that no one can give a paper of pardon to their nationalists.
“We want relations of friendship and cooperation with all. If indeed the leadership of Skopje (FYROM) chooses the Euroatlantic institutions, it has to do one thing” and explained that “it must look at the map of the principles and values of Europe and find the path leading to relations of good neighbourliness. It must obtain a passport with full and final data. There are no other paths and other passports are not acceptable. In this case we have drawn clear red lines and we shall not take even one step back from these lines.”
The prime minister also accused PASOK of announcing expenditures “running into billions which will lead to the uncontrollable swelling of the deficit and of the debt.”
He further said that the main opposition party “is distributing promises that go beyond the limits of the economy’s endurance and it contradicts itself, proving absolute unreliability.”
At the same time, he stressed that PASOK did not dare to reveal the tough measures it would take if it came to power and that “it is saying nothing specific about fiscal restructuring…promising to make Greece ‘Denmark of the south’.”