A deputy of the government’s rightist coalition partner on Thursday created a stir in Parliament when he initially claimed that it was the leftist Greek government that had wire-tapped a video-conference between two top IMF executives early last month.
The discussion between Poul Thomsen, the head of the IMF’s European department, and Delia Velculescu, the IMF mission chief for Greece, on prospects for the Greek bailout program was later splashed across the Internet by global whistleblower Wikileaks.
“What else could the government do when it released the Thomsen-Velculescu dialogue?” Papachristopoulos rhetorically asked during a session in a relevant Parliament committee where two highly contentious tax and pension draft bills were submitted for debate.
The eyebrow-raising statement immediately generated a firestorm criticism from the opposition benches, with some MPs calling for a relevant Parliament committee on transparency to subpoena the leadership of the country’s intelligence services to testify on the matter.
“The (government) is fighting tooth-and-nail at this moment with the International Monetary Fund. How could it burn (the other side) differently?” the MP added in his first statements.
In hasty explanation afterwards, Papachristopoulos said his earlier comments were misunderstood.
“Let me clearly state to those who, in good faith, misunderstood (the comments)… the eavesdropping was done by Wikileaks, and it is impossible for EYP (the Greek national intelligence agency) to have done it…” he said.
Papachristopoulos was elected to Parliament on the Independent Greeks' (AN.EL) party ticket in the last election.
