Financial Times: «ΝΤΑΒΑΤΖΗΔΕΣ οι Σάλας, Βαρδινογιάννης, Λάτσης- Ακονίζει τα μαχαίρια ο ΣΥΡΙΖΑ για τους Έλληνες Ολιγάρχες»

Με σκληρούς χαρακτηρισμούς όπως νταβατζήδων και ολιγαρχών παρομοιάζει
τους κ. Vardis Vardinoyannis, Michalis Sallas, Spiros Latsis, George
Bobolas, Dimitris Copelouzos τους οποίους θα στοχεύσει ο Σύριζα μόλις
αναλάβει την εξουσία συμφωνα με αρθρο των  Financial Times.Το πλήρες άρθρο των  Financial Times:

Syriza turns Greek oligarchs from taboo subject to economic priority

They are Greece’s best-known tycoons, admired and loathed in equal
measure for their vast wealth and deep political connections. While
ordinary Greeks call them «diaplekomenoi» (the entangled ones) or
«davatzides» (pimps), economists call them oligarchs because of their
grip on the country’s business life.

Oligarchs or pimps, their role in Greek politics and society is under
scrutiny ahead of this month’s election.

The far-left Syriza party, which is tipped to win a snap general
election on January 25, has declared war on the oligarchs if it comes
to power. George Stathakis, the party’s shadow development minister,
told the Financial Times last week that Syriza would end the practice
of governments handing out television licences for free to their
political friends and review contentious privatisation sales. Tackling
the oligarchs’ grip on the economy «will be a priority» he said.

Such comments already mark a change from form in Greece, where the
oligarchs’ influence has long been felt but seldom discussed – at
least publicly.

«The real enemy to market competition in Greece is the oligarchy, but
it’s a taboo subject – politicians don’t discuss it and the media
don’t write about it,» says Aristides Hatzis, a professor of law and
economics at Athens University.

One reason is that Greece’s private television channels along with
influential news websites and daily newspapers are in many instances
controlled by oligarchs with editorial influence.

A US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks said: «Greece’s private media
outlets are owned by a small group of people who have made or
inherited fortunes . . . and who are related by blood, marriage or
adultery to political and government officials and/or other media and
business magnates.»

Taming such figures will not be easy: No member of the close-knit
oligarch community has yet been toppled by Greece’s seven-year
economic crisis, even though their media outlets are believed by some
analysts to have racked up almost €2bn in unserviced loans from local
banks as advertising revenues collapsed and handouts from
state-controlled companies disappeared.

Still, they appear to have been weakened by the country’s severe
recession and the fiscal constraints imposed by international
creditors.

«They’re still powerful but their activities have been affected by
recent efforts to clamp down on tax avoidance, for example through
offshore companies,» Mr Hatzis said.

The oligarchs’ political influence also stands to suffer when new
legislation requiring political parties to produce audited accounts is
implemented. One Athens-based economist, who declined to be
identified, said it would be harder in future for any who funded
politicians to keep them «on the payroll».

Greece has a long tradition of businesses relying on political
contacts to push through deals – and of politicians seeking handouts
from business to boost their electoral chances.

Mr Hatzis calls it «a small country where trust is lacking and the
rule of law is not well enforced.»

The scale of such dealing grew in the 1990s as Greece’s economy took
off on the back of market liberalisation required by the EU and
increased funding from Brussels for infrastructure and technology
projects.

Big contracts for EU-backed projects were shared among a small group
of bidders. But occasional dust-ups over the largesse could spill into
politics, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

In one case, Constantine Mitsotakis, a reformist prime minister,
blamed Socrates Kokkalis, the founder of Intracom, a telecoms
equipment producer, for instigating the fall of his government in 1993
over the prospective sale of Greece’s state telecoms company OTE to a
French group that would have used its own equipment supplier – a
charge Mr Kokkalis denied.

Intracom continued to sell equipment worth billions of euros to OTE,
while its sister company Intralot provided automated gaming systems
for OPAP, the state gambling monopoly.

Mr Kokkalis’s influence expanded through the launch of a popular radio
station run by his wife and the acquisition of Greece’s top football
team, Olympiakos.

George Papandreou, the former socialist premier who resigned in 2011,
also claimed he was brought down by oligarchs after a finance ministry
campaign to tackle widespread fuel smuggling revealed a Balkanwide
scam that cost Greece €3bn a year in lost taxes.

«Several prominent bankers and industrialists were among those
determined to see me go,» he told the FT.

The current generation of oligarchs, already well past normal
retirement age, are gradually handing over their day-to-day operations
to younger family members while retaining their power over politicians
through handouts to finance their election campaigns and arranging
access to television coverage.

Costas Bacouris, head of the Greek arm of Transparency International,
the anti-sleaze watchdog, believes that – as ever – the oligarchs will
try to adapt to changing circumstances.

«They continue to wield influence but they’re taking a wait-and-see
position with regard to future political developments,» Mr Bacouris
says. «My understanding is that a number of them have been making
contact with Syriza but it’s not yet clear with what outcome.»

Top oligarchs

Vardis Vardinoyannis: the 81-year-old patriarch of a Cretan family
that controls MotorOil Hellas, Greece’s second-largest oil refinery,
as well as a tanker fleet, a bunkering operation on Crete, an oil and
gas exploration company and a five-star Athens hotel. The
Vardinoyannis group controls one private television station, Star, and
holds a minority stake in another, Mega Channel.

Michalis Sallas: the 64-year-old chairman of Piraeus Bank, which has
become the largest Greek lender by taking over the healthy assets of
two failed Cypriot banks and a Greek state-controlled bank during the
crisis. A founding member of the PanHellenic Socialist Movement
(Pasok) and former econometrics professor at Athens Panteios
university, he has kept close ties since the 1980s with successive
Greek prime ministers.

Spiros Latsis: the 69-year-old son of John Latsis, a London-based
shipping billionaire who funded the UK Conservative party. The Latsis
group is a partner with the Greek state in Hellenic Petroleum, the
country’s biggest oil refiner. Last year Lamda Developments, its
property arm, won a concession to develop Hellenikon, the coastal site
of the former Athens International Airport. Lamda and its partners,
Fosun of China and the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, made the only
binding offer for the €5bn project, which a Syriza-led government may
potentially cancel.

George Bobolas: the 86-year-old founder of Ellaktor, Greece’s leading
construction company, who was accused by journalists and rivals in the
1980s of being a Soviet «agent of influence». Mr Bobolas has always
denied the allegation. The opposition Syriza party says it will review
Ellaktor’s share of income from Attiki Odos, a profitable toll road to
Athens airport if it comes to power. The Bobolas group is a minority
shareholder in Mega Channel and controls Ethnos, a lossmaking daily
newspaper.

Dimitris Copelouzos: aged 64, Gazprom’s representative in Greece since
the 1980s and founder of Copelouzos group, an energy and construction
specialist. The group recently teamed up with the German airport
operator Fraport to make the winning €1.2bn bid for a concession to
operate 14 regional Greek airports that would drive the country’s
tourist development over the next decade. Syriza has warned parliament
may not ratify the deal.