Famellos: You left the country defenceless

Addressing parliament on Wednesday, during a debate focusing on the destructive floods during the summer, the president of main opposition SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance’s parliamentary group, Sokratis Famellos, accused the prime minister of “leaving the country defenceless against the repercussions of climate change.”

Famellos argued that the prime minister’s speech had not really broached the subject of Thessaly’s reconstruction, which was the main topic of the debate in Parliament: “We did not hear from the prime minister about the plan for the reconstruction of Thessaly and how the economy and the development process will start again. The development model and developmental path were not discussed. You asked to discuss one thing and you talked about another in your speech.”

“We called for a debate on the climate crisis in August. We asked for a discussion on the reconstruction of Thessaly, and you are having a discussion about ‘everything and nothing in particular’. There must be a substantive discussion on a restart for Thessaly and Evros, as well as for the climate crisis.”

He then launched an attack saying that “you are reinventing the wheel in 2023. You have left the country defenceless against natural disasters – though the tools existed and were requested by the European Commission as early as 2018 and 2019. You underestimated the science but also the climate crisis and you underestimated the reconstruction but also citizens’ fears. We will submit proposals as we have done, there have been SYRIZA proposals since 2019. Natural disasters would have happened but their impact on the citizens and the country would have been smaller.”

Famellos also referred to the truce in Israel, while criticising the prime minister for his attitude so far: “The truce is indeed positive, but it is hypocritical to hear this from Mitsotakis, who hid and did not sign the UN agreement, an initiative by France.”