A sharp response from Kyriakos Pierrakakis to Socrates Famellos regarding the law Katseli.
“Moving the goalposts” to make room for his criticism, he accused the president of SYRIZA, Sokratis Famellos, the Minister of National Economy and Finance, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, for remarks he made today in his speech to the plenary session of Parliament regarding the amendment on loans under the Katseli Law.
Mr. Pierrakakis said, “I am very confused, in the sense that, since I often study your work and heard what you said at the Athens Bar Association regarding the universal application of the Supreme Court’s decision on Katseli Act loans. Mr. Stournaras and I, what we were saying was that we needed to examine the Supreme Court’s decision and determine how to integrate it into the broader financial system and the broader decisions regarding public debt. So please, pull up the Supreme Court’s decision and tell me where it mentions the word “retroactivity” and at which points it imposes this on the government. Because you, Mr. Famellos, did not mention retroactivity in your speech to the Athens Bar Association either. I understand that you are in a difficult position, as the government is now coming forward and imposing something beyond the Supreme Court’s decision—since, in addition to universality, we are also implementing retroactivity.”
The minister told the president of SYRIZA that what you’re doing today—since we’re also in the middle of the World Cup— “we would describe it as ‘even if you’re offside, you’re still shaking the goalpost’.” Regarding those who have paid off their loans, he said that “the overwhelming majority did so with a lump-sum payment, so they didn’t accrue interest along the way.”
Regarding the remarks by Mr. Famellos concerning those who lost their repayment plan, Mr. Pierrakakis said that “you are concealing the fact that, aside from the fact that final court rulings have been issued, the 70% who lost their repayment plan had not paid even a single installment or part of that plan.”
The minister said that “I will wait for you to vote on the amendment in the spirit of Famellos’s statement to the Athens Bar Association, in which he spoke of the universal application of the Supreme Court’s decision.”
Finally, regarding the data presented by the president of SYRIZA on actual convergence with the EU, Mr. Pierrakakis said that “the country’s real, deflated per capita GDP has increased by 13% from 2019 to the present, while the European average was 5.7%. Real per capita disposable household income rose even more, by 14.3% compared to 6.6% in the EU. “And if we look at per capita consumption and per capita GDP, we see convergence during this period.” There is still much to be done, but “this is how you build progress—as we are doing with this bill—and not with ‘one law and one article’,” the minister remarked pointedly.
