The fallout from Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos’ seemingly “off-the-cuff” remarks at the US Pentagon this week continued to generate political “waves” in Athens on Thursday, with the fissures in the “strange bedfellows” government coalition he props up becoming even more pronounced.
Kammenos, with US Secretary of Defense James Mattis at his side, in short order reiterated his and his small right-wing party’s opposition to the Prespa Agreement – engineered by the Tsipras government, which he backs, and on whose Cabinet he serves. He followed up by proposing the creation of a new “Balkan alliance”, ostensible outside NATO boundaries, and then called for more US bases in Greece. He even ticked off three Greek cities where more US military bases can be hosted: Larissa, Volos and Alexandroupolis.
In the most “diplomatic” reaction of the day, Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias tried to downplay the outspoken minister’s comments. “A foreign affairs minister must not talk too much, in order to be heard when he does talk,” in answer to Kammenos’ “alternative plan” for dealing with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYRoM).
The provisional Prespa Agreement between Athens and Skopje calls for a “Republic of North Macedonia” name for the neighboring country, allowing “Macedonian” for the name of the citizens of the country and the dominant language, but with the fine print in the June 2018 agreement clarifying that the former does not deal with ancient Greek cultural heritage, and the latter specifying that the language belongs to the south Slavic language group.
In a totally different tone, former minister Nikos Xydakis, a leftist SYRIZA MP, said his coalition partner Kammenos “is damaging the government and the national effort to diplomatically upgrade the country … efforts to rejuvenate the country with a healthy public sector and a production framework that keeps our children here and prevents our homeland from a demographic shrivelling.”
On the other side of the aisle, main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis reiterated his standing criticism of the poll-trailing coalition government, leftist PM Alexis Tsipras the outspoken Kammenos.
“The only thing again confirmed is that Mr. Tsipras and Mr. Kammenos only care about staying a little bit longer in their office. That’s why one tolerates the blackmail of the other. Our country, however, continues to lose power, seriousness and credibility; we’re being ridiculed around the world,” the ND president said, while again calling for snap elections as soon as possible.
Regular general elections are scheduled for no later than September 2019.
On her part, the head of the social-democrat KINAL grouping, Fofi Gennimata, repeated that the “Tsipras-Kammenos duo is hurting the country, its credibility and its national interests.”
