Under prime minister Konstantinos Mitsotakis (center), Stefanos Manos (right) served as minister of Environment, Spatial Planning and Public Works (1990-91), and National Economy (1992-93). On the left, Miranda Xafa, director of the then prime minister’s economic office.
Fifteen years ago, in June 2011, the authors of the book “Below Zero. Four Comments on the Crisis” (Takis Theodoropoulos, Petros Markaris, Vassilis Papavassiliou and myself) had invited Stefanos Manos to speak in the town of Katerini about it. However, there had been a mix-up with another book on the Greek debt crisis that we were going to present together, and Manos came prepared for a different book than the one he was going to present.
This “honesty between the speaker and the audience” was the element that differentiated Manos from other politicians, and at the same time doomed him in the elections
He began his speech with some “technical remarks.” The first concerned the chair, which he said “was too low.” The second was: “I was told not to tell you, but I will tell you, because I feel that there must be honesty between the speaker and the audience …” He briefly recounted the mix-up, stating that he had not read the book being presented and added, “It doesn’t matter, I will say the same things about the bailout and the [debt] crisis.”
