10-07-16 Nikos Filis on austerity, electoral law, church-state ties in Real News interview

Education, Research and Religious Affairs Minister Nikos Filis’ interview with the Sunday newspaper Real News, published on 10 July, touches on a host of current political concerns, from troika austerity, capital controls and labour relations, to plans for a new electoral law and for a large Mosque in Athens, as calls for the establishment of private universities. The transcript follows.

Does it not worry you minister that the chiefs of our creditors support your government so much? Might you – as SYRIZA - have become “their man in Greece”, as the Democratic Coalition (Pasok and Democratic Left parties) accuse you?

SYRIZA rules not due to the beneficence of our creditors, but with the mandate of the Greek people, which indeed was confirmed three times (in elections) in nine months. Recently, following the completion of the first review of creditors, political stability was bolstered. Last July the government was forced to make a painful compromise, but not without consulting the people.

Honesty is the foundation of political stability. Last year we were governing as something newfangled in Europe. For some we were a paradox with an expiration date. This year, European developments, which of course are contradictory, show that the road to re-founding Europe on the principles of democracy and social justice, beyond and against the one-way-street of austerity and unemployment, is the way out, as opposed to a rising far right and to the revival of nationalisms, for which the continent has paid so dearly.

Consequently, what is needed is an alliance of progressive forces in Europe. The outcome of this effort is linked as much with the development of social movements as with the repositioning of a large portion of European social democracies, which must realise that the social-liberal consensus creates impasses in Europe. Those of our creditors who were finger-pointing at Greece and cultivated stereotypes of the ΅Greek petty fraudster¨ today are confronted with Brexit, as well as with US revelations about the huge exposure of Deutsche Bank, which if it breaks out, will again imperil the stability of the global economy.

 If for example the creditors insist on labour relations reform, how far are you willing to go, as far as to hold an election?

The DNA of the government and of the left does not include group layoffs and the abolition of collective bargaining agreements. Economic growth is impossible on these terms. Our autumn negotiations with creditors will take place in an environment of European uncertainty. Labour relations have sparked major labour protests, such as those in France recently. Consequently negotiations on labour issues are not conducted on purely national terms.

3. The leaders of the creditors are warning that they will not even consider reducing surpluses after 2018 to 1.5 to 2 percent, as the government has requested. How will you react?

The reduction of primary surpluses does not concern only Greece, but rather a large majority of European countries. After the 2017 elections in Germany and the Netherlands, the issue will most likely be posited on a new basis. The monstrous surpluses of 4.5 % disorganise European economies.

The measures are very harsh, while the taxes coming up will dry up households. Should there perhaps be social counterweights adopted, if of course the troika permits?

Our priority, which is at once the pillar of our plan for viable and just growth, is to support, redesign and bolster the social state. We are putting a break on the decline of social spending. If today we had the Samaras-Venizelos government, education spending would have plunged to 1.9 percent of GDP, i.e. two billion euros less than the 2.8 percent of GDP spent today. With a horizon until 2018, we will pursue an incremental rise in spending on the social state, especially in education, with a programme of mass appointments. We immediately undertook action for uninsured citizens to have access to the health system, to combat extreme poverty, and to provide school meals. We are moving forward with the available funding, with political will, collective efforts, and social offering. Only a SYRIZA government can rectify the injustices imposed by the troika. New Democracy and PASOK maintained that even if the memorandum had not been imposed upon us, we should have invented it.

The framework of the guardians of the (lending ) institutions is suffocating, you must admit. What should be done minister?

We never denied that the country is under a state of oversight. Negotiations with lending institutions is a perpetual effort to loosen [the memorandum]  and finally abolish it. The completion of the first evaluation marks a new page for leaving the memorandum and the crisis. 

 The dominant priority is a reconstruction of the productive base, investments, and the creation of new jobs as the precondition of a new productive model of viable and just development.

You must really believe there is a problem with the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund. Because if there is not, then there is a problem with the ministers who attack it.

I will not speak on specialized issues being handled by other ministers. The government has a specific conception regarding privatisation and that is what the fund must comply with.

The Democratic Coalition party will not vote for a direct proportional representation law. What does this mean strategically?

The political hypocrisy of Pasok is unprecedented. Last year around this time, when it was  led by Evangelos Venizelos, it was submitting a bill for a directly proportional election law, and now it will vote it down, thus canceling itself out.

Messrs. Venizelos and Loverdos with their well known anti-SYRIZA rage, have dragged along Mrs. Gennimata and tied Pasok to the chariot of Kyriakos Mitsotakis. In other words they are transforming the remnants of a great historical current into a satellite and handmaiden of the right.

From that point of view, the differentiation of the Democratic Left (DIMAR) within  the Democratic Coalition is noteworthy.

Are you calling for MPs of the Democratic Coalition and of the Potami party to differentiate themselves in this vote? And are there MPs prepared to do so?

I find it difficult to think of how MPs coming from the left, who for decades fought for proportional representation, would vote down such a proposal in parliament.

Should the new electoral law pass with the votes of golden Dawn?

The political initiative for directly proportional representation is being discussed based on constitutional provisions in parliament. Each party takes a stand and assumes its responsibility. It is tough but not impossible to garner the needed 200 votes in parliament.

Why do you not accept the proposal of New Democracy for a parliamentary inquiry on how capital controls were implemented?

All that happened last summer, as it was the result of a coup, as millions of citizens of the world on the internet had described the blackmailing of our country. These are political issues that were judged in the September elections, but admittedly they are judged daily. It is a mistake for New Democracy, in its rush to come to power, to constantly return to the past. That is not convincing.

Do you believe in direct popular election of the president of the republic? Does not the form of the state change in this manner?

The dialogue on amending the constitution is just starting. The solution is not to seek a concentration of power, but rather a deepening of democracy everywhere. Whatever new balance of state power is chosen, obviously it must not create a duality of power in the state.

Should the separation of church and state be enshrined in the constitution?

The distinction between the roles of church and state must be achieved without unnecessary divisions and anathemas. There are changes that must be pursued without a constitutional amendment, such as educational issues. More generally, the demand for church-state separation in all surveys of the last decade show that it is a mature social demand, present in all political parties, and it responds to the need for a contemporary democratic state in a multicultural environment.

Yes to a mosque in Athens minister, even though there are efforts to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque?

The construction of a mosque in Athens is an international obligation of our country, as it relates to the protection of human rights. In Athens there are residents to whom the Greek state has offered legal residence, and you cannot not facilitate the fundamental practice of their religious traditions. Just as we need cemeteries for Muslims and Jews in order to protect the right of religious burial.

There are mosques in all European cities. There are informal ones in Athens. There is a legal framework for their legalisation, which would ensure necessary security regulations.

Let us then not be lured by religious zealotry and nationalist demagogy.  Greece respects its own constitution and international treaties and does not act with a Pavlovian syndrome, based on what is happening in neighbouring countries.

Ramadan ended a few days ago and as minister of religious affairs I met with all the representatives of Muslim communities and attended the Iftar dinner organized by Shiites, but attended by Sunnis as well. There were representatives of the PASOK and Potami parties as well.

In a democratic Greece with freedom of religion it is possible to have peaceful coexistence even between battling historical currents of Islam.

What should be done with the political currents in SYRIZA, minister? Ahead of your convention, they appear as a party within the party.

Let us not exaggerate. Whatever ailments linger do not reverse the unified framework of operation of SYRIZA. Without democracy and pluralism, we would not be what we are – a party trusted by the people.

Our aim is to create a party open to society, a party of progressive governance and struggle, in which members will have a say and currents will operate as ideas currents and not as political machines. We want a party able to devise a long-term collective plan for reconstruction of the productive base, to free the country from a recessionary policy and social disaster. SYRIZA, the backbone of the progressive governance bloc, is called upon to represent the interests of the great social majority, which the crisis has tried and destroyed. Our priority is a new future with education and work and an equal position for the younger generation.

Is there a prospect of you accepting an amendment of article 16 of the constitution, which bans non-profit private universities?

No. On the contrary, we are working to bolster and expand state tertiary education gradually, with a new system of admissions that will spare families the economic burden of private tutoring, as we discussed recently in the National and Social Dialogue on Education.

Can you offer a commitment minister that schools will open on schedule without vacancies and without a lack of teachers and books? How many teachers short are we today?

We are working day and night so schools can open normally on 12 September. The books will all have been sent by the end of the month.

We have pinpointed for the first time the actual vacancies in education and we are beginning the process of hiring 20,000 substitute teachers. The planning respects the savings of Greek taxpayers and is based on our pursuit of a quality school with equality. Step by step the democratic reform is being implemented. We have the unified all day primary school, new sections for smooth induction and special education, the abolition of many useless exams and expansion of class time in high schools, the upgrading of vocational high schools, changes in the analytic course programme at all levels, which is done by the Institute of Educational Policy. The democratic educational reform is based on dialogue and trust in our teachers.