The Papandreou government proposal to set up of a Parliamentary fact-finding committee into the economy was approved last week despite the strong opposition from main Opposition party, New Democracy.
PASOK maintains that there are clear indications of political intervention in the fiscal data that was publically released for 2007-2009 and on when that data was released.
The main opposition New Democracy party spoke of political expediency last week and called for the terms of reference to be backdated to 1981.
In the meantime, LAOS president G. Karatzaferis said that his party would not participate in the fact-finding. The government rejects the the accusation that the fact-finding committee is an act of revenge and insist that Greek people must learn the truth.
“We owe a response to Greek people and European partners on what has exactly happened and who is responsible for the situation”, said government spokesman, George Petalotis.
“We have not covered up, nor hidden anything; we tell the truth and request the truth.”
The PASOK spokesperson labeled the proposal “serious, moderate and in no way divisive and vengeful” and called for all political parties to agree to the inquiry in an effort to restore Greece’s credibility. The government spokesman did not rule out calling on former Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, to Inquiry Committee hearings, underlining that such move is legal and workable.
New Democracy party spokesman, Panos Panagiotopoulos said the government’s proposal to restrict the investigation to the period 2004-2009 period was designed to attack New Democracy and would represent an act of “political expediency and partisan bigotry”.
LAOS president G. Karatzaferis announced that his party would not participate in the Committee, describing its setting up as being futile since the case has been referred to the public prosecutor.
He said that LAOS will not contribute in the two large parties efforts to completely downbase the country’s political history in the last years.
Alexis Tsipras president of SYRIZA Parliamentary Group spoke of the fact-finding committee being a ‘cheap communication game.’
