The council of the political leaders was held in the presidential palace a day after the referendum of the 5^th of July, chaired by the President of the Republic P. Pavlopoulos. The Prime Minister and President of SYRIZA A. Tsipras, the acting President of ND E. Meimarakis, the President of POTAMI S. Theodorakis, the GS of the CC of the KKE D. Koutsoumpas, the President of ANEL P. Kammenos and the President of PASOK F. Gennimata attended the 7-hour meting.

During the meeting the parties of SYRIZA, ANEL, ND, POTAMI, PASOK came to an agreement and indeed signed a joint statement, interpreting the result of the referendum as acceptance of the euro and the EU and paving the way for an anti-people agreement.

The GS of the CC of the KKE, D. Koutsoumpas, expressed his complete disagreement with the joint statement.

The GS of the CC of the KKE, Dimitris Koutsoumpas, made the following statement after yesterday’s meeting of the political leaders chaired by the President of the Republic:

“We listened to the briefing of the Prime Minister in the meeting chaired by the President of the Republic concerning the course of the continuing negotiations and discussions, after the referendum of the Greek people.

We clearly expressed on our part, once again, the views of the KKE regarding the assessment of the referendum result and chiefly as regards the enormous problems being experienced by the Greek people inside the predatory alliance of the EU, which has a political line that continually increases the impasses for the people, the people’s income, the course of the country and the course of our people as a whole. It has been demonstrated, once again, that there can be no pro-people pro-worker negotiations inside the walls of the EU, inside the capitalist development path.

The KKE disagreed as a whole with the joint statement, which the rest of the political leaders and political parties agreed to.  Our disagreement is related to how we understand the verdict of the Greek people yesterday and chiefly to our assessment of the course and tactics for the negotiations that the government is proposing and that the other parties accept, at least as regards its general framework and direction.

No one has authorized anybody to go and sign new memoranda, new painful measures for our people. And these measures will be harsh.”

In response to the question of a journalist as to whether he is talking about a “solution outside the euro”, D. Koutsoumpas stressed the following:

“No. We made the following issue clear, that this political line can go in two directions: either they will sign, as it seems and is being scheduled – we will see in the days to follow- a painful agreement, with harsh anti-people measures, a new memorandum, or we will have a state bankruptcy, with a grexit, with a departure from the euro or a double currency or something else. We hear about this mainly from the “partners”, the political parties did not say this at the council of the political leaders. The “partners” talk about this. So our people must be prepared. The position of the KKE is that both these possible outcomes, i.e. an agreement with a memorandum and harsh measures or a grexit or something else will be at the expense of the Greek people.

The rupture with the EU, capital and their power has as its precondition a totally different strategy, workers’-people’s power, that the people are truly in power and socialize the means of production, disengage from the EU and unilaterally cancel the debt. This is the comprehensive and totally different proposal of the KKE and has no relation to the various views that will lead to the new pauperization of our people. And I mean views that exist in other parties, as a minority at the moment, as they are in the governing party, that talk about exit only from the currency.”

07.07.2015