Ex-PM decries ‘polarized climate’

Lucas Papademos, who was seriously injured when a letter bomb exploded in his car in May last year, has told Kathimerini in an interview that he does not regret assuming the post of prime minister at the peak of the country’s crisis and decried a “deeply polarized political climate” which, he said, created fertile ground for terrorist attacks.

Asked about the attack on him in May, the 70-year-old economist and president of the Academy of Athens said that the spread of misinformation and fake news had poisoned the climate in Greece.

“Such a deeply polarized political climate foments hostility and hate and creates the conditions that can inspire or encourage acts of violence or terrorism,” he said. “The attack on me boosted those concerns,” he added.

Referring to the May 25 attack, for which police arrested a suspected member of the Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire urban guerrilla group in October, Papademos said that he did not faint but did think about the things he had not said to or done for his loved ones.

The bomb blast in the car left him with serious injuries, particularly a thigh wound which he said still hurts. But the impact of the blast would have been worse had he been in a car with rein- forced windows instead of a conventional vehicle.

In spite of his ordeal, Papademos said he does not regret his choice to lead the country from November 11 to May 2012. “My decision to assume responsibility for governing the country was essentially influenced by the dangers that the country faced then,” he said. “Whatever the personal risk, I would not have changed my decision.”