“It is a fact, not only observed in Greece, that there is a rise of populist parties within Europe’s countries…because of the decline of the European Union’ s political and economic pillars,” Kouveliotis said.
Greece’s radical left party Syriza won the parliamentary elections on Sunday. Syriza’s main pledge during the election campaign was to renegotiate Greece’s economic crisis bailout terms without leaving the Eurozone.
“There is hardly a political union to accompany or balance the economic and monetary one and all ‘good things’ that European integration brought in our lives the last decades…Major reforms are required,” Kouveliotis underscored.
People in all 28 EU member states feel like the domination of Germany has substituted the European Union as an idea, the advisor to the secretariat general of mass media that had the task to organize the international press center for the elections, said.
“The European Union needs to create a new identity and reinvent itself otherwise its future is going to be a loose zone for trade exchange serving a German dominated multispeed Eurozone,” Kouveliotis added.
“It is a common belief among the Greek people today that Germany has found a new way to occupy the country again via the strict austerity measures,” Kouveliotis explained.
According to the official results of the elections, the radical left-wing party Syriza received 36.34 percent of votes and secured 149 out of 300 seats in the parliament. A total of seven parties passed the threshold to be included in the Greek parliament. Alexis Tsipras has formed a coalition government between the winning party Syriza and the Independent Greeks, a nationalist right-wing party.
