ATHENS — "You are attempting a reactionary institutional change that targets democracy, the constitutionally established right to demonstrate, to assemble, to protest, that no previous government has even conceived in the post-dictatorship era," stated main opposition leader Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the SYRIZA party, while addressing Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in parliament on Thursday.

Speaking during a debate on the draft bill on public assembly, Tsipras said the government is attempting to "reinstate decrees of 1971". He also personally accused the prime minister of choosing to spend his time "not to build but to demolish and exact revenge on Greece, which has moved on, leaving behind the state of the Right and its syndromes," as well as on his party's political adversary, the Left.

According to Tsipras, the reason why the government was attempting this reactionary change at this time was that it feared the developments and social reactions that will come in September, as the country will "enter a period of deep recession".