Tsipras’s warning shot to the Left Platform (non paper)

Last night, the Greek government released a non-paper through which Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras issues a ‘warning shot’ towards the Left Platform of his party, after 32 SYRIZA MPs (most of which belong to the Left Platform) rejected the new bailout deal brought forth in the parliament.

You can find the original document non paper (in Greek) here, and a translated version below.

 

Non paper, 16.07.2015

A meeting between governmental and party officials took place this afternoon at the Maximos Mansion, where current developments were discussed. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also referred to the [Syriza] Parliamentary Group meeting, where, in his view, the alternatives that could be submitted in the EU Summit did not give a way out from the blackmailing dilemma that we faced. He [Tsipras] emphasized specifically:

“Based an [all] these, I asked from the Parliamentary Group and from each MP individually to be positioned on the question of whether this blackmail was a real or a fake one. And I asked to decide together, if it is fake, all of us to vote NO. If, however, we decide that it is real, all of us together have to bear the responsibility. The fact that a substantive and substantiated objection towards the true power of the blackmail was not expressed, makes the choice of 32 MPs of the Parliamentary Group not to share the responsibility, both with me personally as with the rest 110 MPs of SYRIZA, a choice that is in conflict with the principles of camaraderie and solidarity, and in a crucial time creates an open wound in our interior.

Personally, I cannot permit anybody, after all that has happened to me in the past 6 months, to think that he has a stronger dilemma of conscience over our common principles, values, positions, and ideological references.

This choice, in fact, of our comrades, essentially constitutes stale the support of the first Left government in the history of the country, since I am now forced to continue until the completion of the agreement, with a government that is based on a minority number of MPs in relation to the total number of 300 representatives.”