“Europe’s problem is not the cursed left party. It is the European intransigence that is leading the negotiation to a deadlock and not the supposedly obsolete obsessions of our country. There are many and powerful circles in the EU and the IMF that are currently seeking to strangle the Greek left experiment. If the plan is a European structure from which Greece is excluded because it does not want to succumb, then they will have to be aware that this Europe will be handicapped, they will have to know that they are dissolving the European structure,” Greek Productive Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis said at an Economist conference on Friday. Lafazanis also made a proposal for a fair delimitation of marine and submarine rights across the Mediterranean, starting from the Aegean and the Southeast region. He reiterated the government’s decision to pursue an independent and multi-level energy policy and expressed the government’s support to TAP and the Greek Stream, designed to transport Russian gas to Europe and the East Med, as well as the electrical connections in the area. Asked about the Russian gas pipeline, he said there are contracts and available consumers as well as that Greece will not object to the extension of the pipeline to Italy. Regarding market deregulation, he underlined that the “government policy is in favor of market liberalization, of healthy and free competition”, but added that “deregulation does not mean downgrading and abolition of the state in the energy sector, nor split and privatization of PPC, ADMIE and DEPA. This will not be done because it is not in the interest of the country.” (source: ana-mpa)