Simitis tells government to focus on policies to ensure country’s future, set aside scandal-mongering

In a rare public statement, former prime minister Costas Simitis said that personal attacks do not touch him, but that it is the duty of those in power to produce policies for the future, and not to engage in mudslinging about the past.

Following the testimony of Evangelos Vasilakos, the former secretary of arms procurement, who expressed the conviction that Simitis knew of kickbacks taken for the C4I Olympics security system by his defence minister, Yannos Papantoniou, the ex-PM underlined that, “It is dangerous for the country for public life to be dragged into a cesspool of slander and mudslinging while the crisis is still present.”

“The motivations of the pre-electoral period should not lead us into adventures that are analogous to what we experienced and paid for in 2015,” Simitis stated, referring to the period when the Tsipras administration with then finance minister Yanis Varoufakis brought Greece to the brink of Brexit.

Costas Simitis’ full statement is as follows:

“It is dangerous for the country for public life to be dragged into a cesspool of slander and mudslinging while the crisis is still present.

The motivations of the pre-electoral period should not lead us into adventures that are analogous to what we experienced and paid for in 2015.

It is the duty of those in power to produce policies for the future, and not to engage in mudslinging about the past.

As I have stated, personal attacks against me do not touch me.”