SYRIZA lawmaker and former Alternate Minister of Culture Nikos Xydakis shocked the political world and the public opinion on Tuesday morning when he implied a possible Greek withdrawal form the eurozone. Xydakis said that speaking about Drachma is a taboo and that there should be no taboos when we speak about people’s fate.
Speaking to private Skai TV Xydakis said among others:
“There should be no taboos when we speak about the people’s fate. We should create scenarios, look back at the historical experience.
I think, there should be a substantial political and national discussion that has not taken place in the last seven years. And, of course, the discussion should start at the Parliament. Over the past years an issue has been demonized, I have said that Greece flourished also with the Drachma.”
Nikos Xydakis added “We had the Drachma also before the euro, in 1910, 1912, 1930, 1960… the country managed something, somehow we managed to live, we lived also in other period of time. I put this debate on the historic context.”
The SYRIZA lawmaker blamed the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble for the Drachma issue saying “If the other [side] opens the door [to the issue], what will you say? I don’t talk about it? it is Schaeuble saying this.”
But most of all, Xydakis shocked the political world and sparked an outrage. Immediate was the reaction coming from opposition parties. They demanded that the government clarifies whether it plans to take the country out of the eurozone.
It is not clear whether Xydakis proposal was rhetorical as some SYRIZA-friendly websites implied.
However, the alarm bells rang as his Drachma debate comes a day after another SYRIZA MP revealed that the left-wing/nationalist coalition government of SYRIA-Independent Greeks was discussing the solution of a Referendum as a way out of the deadlock between Greece and lenders. the public should decide whether Athens should accept the lenders’ demand for additional austerity measure to be legislated now and be implemented after 2018.
A couple of hours later, former journalist Nikos Xydakis in a long post on Facebook wrote that he never supported return to the Drachma, adding, however, that all options should be discussed.
For one more time, lenders have pushed Greece in a dire situation, insisting on the participation of the International Monetary Fund in the Greek program which on its part demands more austerity measures claiming the Greek debt was not sustainable.
Bloomberg revealed on Monday, that Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos gave a memo to European lenders in which he writes that Greece has fulfilled only 1/3 of the bailout prerequisites.
The Greek Finance Ministry has not dismissed the Bloomberg revelations so far.
I suppose, the Drachma leakage aims to test reactions and help SYRIZA formulate the Referendum question.
PS We suffered for seven years in order to return to drachma which is something we should have done in 2010?
That ship has sailed. It could have been done in 2010/11/12 in combination with a default. Life after that would have been very very hard but it is not much better now and you will be debt slaves until 2059. Eventually, Greece would have made it back to the money markets.
Greece can’t go back to Drachme because the debts will stay nominated in Euro while the assets would be in Drachme.
They can return to the big D as long as they get help from EU.
Greece should discuss the return to the drachma, it would help the people decide the issues of staying in the Euro, a and it would be better to leave the unjust currency union on their own terms than keep waiting for the E.U. To kick the out on their terms, that is Scheaubles’ terms.
“PS We suffered for seven years in order to return to drachma which is something we should have done in 2010?”
Exactly!
I said back then that Greece should dump the Euro and return to the Drachma, and most of my (Greek) business owner friends agreed with me. We’ve now had six years of misery, with the country digging itself deeper and deeper into a financial hole, with the EU bankers handing new shovels down when the old ones wear out. “Keep digging!” they say.
If Greece had got out of the Euro in 2010, it would have been painful, but by now Greece would be on the way up. As it is, the country is still teetering on the edge of the abyss, and that abyss is looking darker by the year.
The stupid thing is that Greece WILL be ejected from the Euro at some point, and all the pain will have been for nothing.
Some anti-capitalistic measures should be implemented first against greedy buyers from abroad, so that they will have to pay their houses and other shit still in Euro then
The majority of Greedy buyers abroad will be Greeks with money outside of GR. = )
And not only that, there will be a huge black market for EUR drachmas, so they will do what Greeks do best, pretend they are poor and have no money, and use ‘black’ Drachmas to buy whatever they want = )))
Okidoki,then just wait a few years more, they get old and die out soon, but not your stupid clichés
And even if you wouldn’t be wrong this will only support the only real solution to go and this will be: no currencies at all.
No money system is bad for rich pricks: You want our little house? We want your frat yacht and visiting rights for our garden and one room