Former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has launched a fresh, sharp intervention that’s stirring up Greece’s political scene, set against the backdrop of Greek-Turkish tensions and the Greece-Cyprus electricity interconnection. In a social media post, the former premier fired shots in multiple directions, tying statements from Left-wing party officials to government tactics and openly describing what he called an unusual alignment between the PM’s office and the SYRIZA leadership.
The Kasos cable and ‘Prespes of the Aegean’
Samaras’s outburst was triggered by recent remarks from Nikos Bistis and Giorgos Siakantaris, officials with the Greek Left Coalition (ELAS), who described the laying of the electrical cable off Kasos as a unilateral Greek move and called for compromise solutions with Turkey along a “win-win” logic.
Responding to that, Samaras argued that calling the Kasos cable a unilateral Greek action amounts to appeasement.
He also went directly after Alexis Tsipras, saying that whether under the SYRIZA or ELAS banner, Tsipras remains the same, accusing him of backing what Samaras labeled an “Aegean Prespes,” after having previously pushed through what Samaras called the nationally unacceptable Prespa agreement.
Jabs at Gerapetritis, a dig at Mitsotakis
Samaras’s criticism didn’t stop at the opposition. He also took aim at Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, pointedly noting that in a recent TV interview, Gerapetritis not only failed to reject the ELAS officials’ positions but didn’t address them at all.
He closed with a line likely to spark plenty of discussion inside party circles: that the only calm waters left in the region, it turns out, are the ones between Mitsotakis and Tsipras.
Samaras’s intervention suggests the dividing lines, both within the party and across the wider political landscape, remain deep.
