On April 23, 2010, the Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou It appears on television with the backdrop of the Aegean blue and behind it the colorful Castellorizo.
The image – almost directed by the intensity of a political thriller – will forever engraved in collective memory. On that day, Papandreou activates Greece’s support mechanism, putting the country on the orbit of the Memorandums.
Fifteen years later, He returns to the events of that time through an in -depth interview with “VIMA”. And with a less apologetic and more politically stochastic reason, it gives a new dimension to Kastellorizo’s “scene”: not as a preamble to the crisis, but as a call for change.
‘It was a conscious and symbolic decision’
THE Papandreou is not distancing his choice. On the contrary, she defends it in an almost poetic way. Kastellorizo, he says, “is a symbol of creative Hellenism” and his image does not signal a national defeat, but a critical turning point. A moment when “the country looked in the mirror”.
The island’s choice, according to him, also had an international -political burden: “The whole world saw it. What better registration for Castellorizo than this? ” Political communication in complete synergy with geostrategic semantics.
Hide, alchemies and lost years
The former prime minister brings back to the forefront the “accounting frauds” of the Karamanlis government And he insists that Greece was led to vortex not because of its own plan, but because for years the elements were “cooked”. He admits that the revelation of real sizes was not only an act of transparency, but also a strategic building of credibility.
“The biggest problem then was not the deficit. It was the deficit of trust, “he says. And he reminds us that the partners knew the situation very well, despite the contrary to the contrary. Greece was just the first link of a European chain in crisis.
Merkel, Barroso, IMF – the protagonists of the crisis
The interview runs as a political documentary the critical scenes in Brussels and the backdrop of European consultations. Merkel, Sarkozy, Barroso, Juncker – all present, all with roles that wrote history.
Papandreou speaks with details For the first discussions on the creation of a European support mechanism And for the mistrust of the European Commission of Barroso, which “covered” the elements of the previous Greek government. Time, he says, was limited – and decisions had to be taken with a surgeon’s temper.
The inner scene: “We are not all the same”
Within the border, Papandreou describes a political environment of contradiction. He remembers the support of Dora Bakoyannis, but also the “irresponsibility” Her brother, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who joined Antonis Samaras. Insists that there was no alternative: either an adjustment program or chaos.
Rejects, with obvious discomfort, criticism of delays or alternative borrowing scenarios. “We took action since 2009, before the internal controls were completed,” he says. And he replies to the classic proposal for early elections: “It would be a national disaster. We are not all the same. “
The two phrases that marked him
“There is money” and “we ate them together”: two phrases that functioned almost as political hashtag before even invented social media. Papandreou states that they were misunderstood, isolated from their overall frame and toolted by those who are “afraid of the truth”. The public sphere, after all, does not forgive the mistakes, but even less forgives the truths that do not fit.
And now?
In the finale of the interview, the former prime minister makes an emphatic reference to the need for a strategic reboot. He criticizes today’s government, speaks of arrogance and institutional depreciation, and parallels today with 2009 – “trade deficit, lack of strategy, image of chaos”.
The “Castellorizo’s profession” was not, after all, the beginning of the crisis. It was the foreground of a new era, an attempt to restart in terms of honesty and rupture.
As in any good political drama, the public can be divided for heroes and anti-heroes. The script, however, does not change. And Papandreou insists: Kastellorizo was not the end – it was a decision to start again.