‘Greece & EU: Either saved or collapsed together’

Greek MP Simos Kedikoglou predicts his country's economic collapse within weeks, even days, if it doesn’t receive another tranche that finance ministers of eurozone countries have agreed to release.

But the fall of Athens will have a domino effect – tugging away the rest of Europe.The Greek politician has sharply criticized the recent country’s government and the newly appointed prime minister for bowing entirely the Brussels’ will and passing laws which are required solely by the European leaders. “Greece does not feel to be rightfully represented by this parliament because they feel they were tricked in the last elections,” Kedikoglou told RT. “The socialists were saying ‘we have money, we will give you money’ and they ended up by taking the money of the people. Greeks need to feel rightfully represented by their parliament and we need a government that is supported by the Greek society. And that comes only with elections”. Simon Kedikoglou acknowledges there is a fear for tomorrow in Athens.“We don’t know what’s coming next,” he said. “Now everyone is realizing that it is not just a Greek problem, it is the European problem. The whole system that we have made up in the European Union is not working.”“We had only monetary union without economic union, without political union. We need to move to a faster and bigger integration,” he added.The MP says the government in Greece used to lie to its people about how the country’s development was progressing. “It was the way of borrowing money and giving it away. It was done in the wrong way,” he claims. “We don’t produce as much as we did before and we don’t have the exports that we could have and we haven’t attracted the investments that we must attract. So we must change the whole structure of our economy very quickly and completely.”“We didn’t speak the truth to the people over the past years. We know the problem is we didn’t do what had to be done quickly and radically. We tried to do the changes slowly and without shocking the society. It proved to be too slowly and too late,” he stated. “Now we have to speak the truth that in the last 20 years, Greece has been importing more than it’s been exporting. We don’t produce. Greece doesn’t produce the wheat, the meat that Greeks need. It is the first time since World War II Greece can’t feed its own people. In a country like Greece, where everything can grow, I think it’s a crime.” But at the same time Simos Kedikoglou argues austerity cannot save his country. “If you raise the taxes in an economy which is in recession then the results are catastrophic. We need a policy which encourages development. If we go where we are going, I think the collapse is certain".“And that’s going to be Greek tragedy. And not just Greek tragedy,” he predicts. “It will have a domino effect and the whole Europe will be affected. You can’t sacrifice Greece just to save eurozone. Eurozone will either be saved all together or collapsed all together.”