EUROZONE-GREECE/MORNING EXPECTATIONS Mixed reactions from Greeks on covert Syriza drachma plan reports

Record ID: 146212

  • Title: EUROZONE-GREECE/MORNING EXPECTATIONS Mixed reactions from Greeks on covert Syriza drachma plan reports
  • Date: 27th July 2015
  • Summary: ATHENS, GREECE (JULY 27, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SYNTAGMA SQUARE WITH PARLIAMENT IN BACKGROUND GREEK FLAG VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING ON SQUARE VARIOUS OF PEOPLE STANDING ON STEPS OF PARLIAMENT (SOUNDBITE) (Greek) BUSINESSMAN, YANNIS HANIOTIS, 52, SAYING: "I think that these things that we have to live through are just wrong. I'm 52 and I can't believe I'm living this. It
  • Embargoed: 11th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Greece
  • Country: Greece
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAC5HDC1Z1N4Z2FBRU1LBAAU8CK
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Greeks gave mixed reactions on Monday (July 27) to reports that some members of the country's leftist government wanted to raid central bank reserves and hack taxpayer accounts to prepare a return to the drachma.
    The media reports, which highlighted the chaos in the ruling Syriza party were attributed to former Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.
    Both were sacked earlier this month when they rebelled over the bailout plans which parliament had eventually approved.
    The reports have been seized on by opposition parties who have demanded an explanation.
    The reports came at the end of a week of fevered speculation over what Syriza hard-liners had in mind as an alternative to the tough bailout terms that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reluctantly accepted to keep Greece in the euro.
    For 52-year-old businessman Yannis Haniotis, whose booming construction business had seen him paying annual tax amounting to as much as 200,000 euros, was forced to shut it down this week when the crisis pushed it to bankruptcy.
    "I think that these things that we have to live through are just wrong. I'm 52 and I can't believe I'm living this. It's terrible, horrible. This country has been destroyed. I'm a businessman and I'm quitting, I'm done. And I'd like to see what kind of revenue the state will get when no one is working at all," Haniotis said, adding that he now plans to move back to his island and plan what he can for the future.
    Others however say they don't see anything wrong with the government's actions and say they continue to respect the outspoken Varoufakis.
    "So, what did Varoufakis do? Nothing. I don't understand they're talking about hacking. It was just a Plan B. Can't a government make a Plan B," asked architect Vina Tsoutsoura.
    "He (Varoufakis) is a man who knows what he's talking about. I don't want to believe such things. And I don't want to believe that other ridiculous story about how they wanted to raid the Central Bank reserves. These are ridiculous things. I don't believe that serious and logical people could think of doing such things," said an Athens resident who refused to give his full name.
    "I think this is all make-believe. I can't imagine that a Greek would want to do such harm to his country," said pensioner Lena as she walked through the city's central Syntagma Square on a searing hot day in the capital.
    Among many Greeks was also a sense of resignation and acceptance that there will be many tough years ahead as the country fulfils its part of the 86 billion euro bailout programme.
    "He (Tsipras) put up a fight, a really, really good fight. The only one who put up such a fight. What's the result? Nothing. It's a shame but that's the outcome. Nothing," said pensioner Kostas.
    Greece's newspapers headlined the latest report, many singling out their criticism of Varoufakis.
    In an interview with Sunday's edition of the RealNews newspaper, Lafazanis, the hardline former energy minister who lost his job after rebelling over the bailout plans, said he had urged the government to tap the reserves of the Bank of Greece in defiance of the European Central Bank.
    Lafazanis, leader of a hardline faction in the ruling Syriza party that has argued for a return to the drachma, said the move would have allowed pensions and public sector wages to be paid if Greece were forced out of the euro.
    However he denied a report in the Financial Times that he wanted Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stouranaras to be arrested if he had opposed a move to empty the central bank vaults. In comments to the semi-official Athens News Agency, he called the report a mixture of "lies, fantasy, fear-mongering, speculation and old-fashioned anti-communism".
    In a separate report in the conservative Kathimerini daily, Varoufakis was quoted as saying that a small team in Syriza had prepared plans to secretly copy online tax codes. It said the "Plan B" was devised to allow the government to introduce a parallel payment system if the banking system was closed down.
    In remarks the newspaper said were made to an investors' conference on July 16, Varoufakis said passwords used by Greeks to access their online tax accounts were to have been copied secretly and used to issue new PIN numbers for every taxpayer to be used in transactions with the state.
    Varoufakis, an outspoken academic economist who became deeply unpopular with other European finance ministers during his five months in office, stood down earlier this month to facilitate bailout talks. He has been a strident opponent of the deal ever since.
    Under the plan, which the report said went back to before Tsipras was elected in January, transactions through the parallel system would have been nominated in euros but could easily change into drachmas overnight, he was quoted as saying.
    Varoufakis denied the report. "So, I was going to "hijack" Greek citizens' tax file numbers? Impressed by my defamers' imagination," he wrote on Twitter.
    The centre-right New Democracy party and the centrist To Potami and the Socialist Pasok parties, which all backed Tsipras in parliamentary votes on the bailout this month, demanded a response to the reports.
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