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The Parliament discusses a referendum on the partial privatisation of the Greek electricity company

10 July 2014 / 15:07:37  GRReporter
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The number of deputies who want a referendum on the bill relating to the sale of the Greek national electricity company exceeded 120 as required by the Constitution. The number of proposals received so far is 7 and the total number of signatures 139.
 
However, it remains unclear whether the number of signatures in the different proposals should be summed up. The meeting of the Conference of Presidents that was scheduled for 2:30 pm will take the appropriate decision after considering the expert opinion of the Scientific Service of the Parliament.

It should be noted that the Constitution requires 120 signatures of deputies in order for the proposal for a referendum to be discussed at a plenary meeting. The very decision to hold a referendum must be supported by 180 deputies.

The proposals submitted to the parliamentary services are as follows:

From the opposition left SYRIZA party (71 signatures)
From the nationalist Golden Dawn party (16 signatures)
From Independent Greeks (14 signatures, including the signature of Nikos Nikolopoulos)
From the independent democratic deputies (14 signatures)
From the Greek Communist Party (12 signatures)
From Democratic Left (11 signatures, excluding Grigoris Psarianos and Katerina Markou, who is an independent deputy)
From former speaker of parliament Viron Polidoras (signed by him).

In its proposal, the Greek Communist Party wants a referendum to repeal laws 1914/1990, 2773/1999, 3426/2005, 4001/2011, 4237/2014 as well as the already voted law on "Creating a new integrated electricity company", known as "The small national electricity company."

The proposal of Democratic Left was accompanied by a statement from deputy Spiros Likoudis who says it cannot be put together with the similar demands of the other political forces, as they actually have very different motives and logic. He points out that Democratic Left did the right thing by not signing the proposal of SYRIZA and emphasizes his objections even to the separate proposal submitted by his party. According to Spiros Likoudis, it is "extremely difficult" for citizens to respond to such a complex question with a YES or NO in a referendum. Finally, the deputy explains that he signed the proposal from a sense of solidarity with the other members of Democratic Left, and because this will prevent the suspicions that the party has begun to act as a satellite of SYRIZA.

Secretary of the parliamentary group of Democratic Left Dimitris Anagnostakis denied in the presence of journalists the scenarios under which the party would withdraw its proposal if it were brought together with the proposal of Golden Dawn, and explained, "We have political differences with Golden Dawn and we have repeatedly announced them. We will fight to find common ground with the parties of the so-called democratic circle, because we believe that they exist. Our proposal remains in force."

Tags: ParliamentDeputiesReferendumPrivatisationGreek national electricity company
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