Not really. Yiannis Stournaras, Greece’s finance minister was speaking at the Parliament. He spoke and spoke … words and number were shot from his mouth and eventually he got thirsty. Much to his surprised, the parliament staff had not put a glass of water in front of the eloquent speaker. “Mr President,” Stournaras said addressing the presiding chairman of the session, “I think here, that the House deprives me of water!”
Forcefully coming down to the real world, the personnel abandoned its comfortable dozing and rushed to supply with finance minister with water. The panic was apparently so big, that they grabbed not one, but two bottles of water.
Amid moderate laughter from the side of the lawmakers, a voice was heard saying in serious tone: “The moment you will sell the public water companies, you’ll see that more people will be deprived of water!”
The sharp and pointed remark had come from Zoi Konstantopoulou, MP from left-wing SYRIZA.
Video: footage excerpt from satirical Radio Arvyla
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Greece plans to sell 51% of its stake to Thessaloniki water company in order to satisfy the demands of its lenders International Monetary Fund and European Union.
Civic organizations and opposition parties fear that privatization of water companies will skyrocket its price. Private Initiative “Save Greek Water from Privatization” has started a petition in avaaz.org. So far 24,242 signatures have been collected. Petitioners’ target is to reach 30,000.
