Focusing his fire on main opposition New Democracy and its leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Wednesday accused Mitsotakis of doing the “dirty work” of media channel owners ever since his election to the party’s leadership. Returning to the stand for his rejoinder, during an off-the-agenda debate on education in Parliament, Tsipras also poured scorn on his positions on private education.
“Your problem, Mr. Mitsotakis, is not that you defend the view that there should be private schools and universities. Your problems is that you are biased in favour of private schools and universities against state education,” he said.
Earlier, Tsipras had also submitted a request for an off-the-agenda debate in Parliament on corruption and intertwined interests.
Tsipras also attacked ND’s positions concerning evaluation for teachers and public-sector staff. “You don’t want evaluation, you want an excuse for lay-offs,” Tsipras said, announcing that the government is preparing comprehensive legislation on assessing public-sector staff.
He called on Mitsotakis to clarify exactly what he intended to scrap when he said that ND would abolish everything that the SYRIZA government had done in education, once in power, and “to clearly tell the Greek family that you disagree with the abolition of the exam-centred school.”
In his first address to Parliament, Tsipras had railed against intertwined interests and the “old political system,” as well as the stance of certain media toward the TV licence tender.
The prime minister sent a message that the government continues efforts to exit the crisis with the society upright, as well as the efforts to put an end to the corruption and the problems of many years.
Conclusion of the second programme review
Moreover, he expressed his optimism over the conclusion of the second programme review and accused the main opposition of undermining the negotiations on labour and debt issues.
Tsipras stressed the importance of a free and humanitarian state schools that offers equal opportunities to everyone and will not magnify cultural differences, a school that will emphasize on the talents and skills of children. “We want a school that will give the same opportunities to everyone to excel,” he underlined.
He stated that Greece has for the first time an opportunity to overcome the crisis. The first programme review has been successfully concluded, he said, adding that the green light for the disbursement of the 2.8 billion euro loan sub-tranche will be given. Tsipras also said that Greece has had positive growth rates since the third quarter of 2016 and they will be even higher in 2017 while unemployment has been reduced.
He noted that the debt issue is for the first time discussed at a European and international level and by the end of the year we expect positive news from this front.
Finally, he said that 255 million euros from the TV licence tender have already been channeled for the support of people in need.
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