Euclid Tsakalotos

Watching developments in Britain, my mind goes back to the near-fatal and certainly costly Greek summer of 2015. The turmoil surrounding the bailout referendum called by the leftist-led administration of Alexis Tsipras now feels like a distant memory, or rather like a nightmare one would rather forget. 

Hours after conservative Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that Greece will soon remove the last remaining capital controls imposed on bank depositors at the height of the financial crisis, former finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos accused the government of piggybacking on his administration's efforts to lift restrictions.

By all accounts the Mitsotakis administration had the best start of any Greek government in recent decades.
From the very beginning it acted swiftly and decisively, exploiting the positive expectations that were cultivated during the electoral campaign.

The prime minister is already making his mark through laborious nationwide efforts.

MeRA25 chief Yanis Varoufakis accused the former SYRIZA administration of imposing Greece's "harshest memorandum," saying that any members of the now-opposition party who take to the streets in protest at the new government would be "comical."

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos says the conservative opposition New Democracy party has won the general election.

Tsakalotos spoke after exit polls for Sunday's election showed the governing left-wing SYRIZA trailing its main rivals by a significant margin.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on July 5 warned that the country risks a return to the "dark days" of austerity if his party loses a snap election on July 7.

Plans from Greece's opposition for tax cuts could derail the country's fiscal strategy, its deputy finance minister said on Friday, two days before an election that polls show the opposition is likely to win.

In a wide-ranging interview with Skai Television Tuesday night, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras engaged in broad self-criticism while holding up Greece's exit from the international bailouts and its contentious name deal with North Macedonia as his administration's two key achievements. 

By George Gilson

As it enters the last stretch of the campaign in a general election that all polls indicate it will lose, SYRIZA's main strategy is to depict New Democracy leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his party as a force that will bring a restoration of neo-liberal austerity policies.

In early January, 2015, when there were rumours that Yanis Varoufakis would be tapped as (what by all appearances would be) the incoming SYRIZA government, Alexis Tsipras received warnings from various quarters that it would be a wrong-headed choice.