Greek-Spanish clash with A. Samaras lurking in the shadows

The governments of Madrid and Lisbon have reacted against comments made by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras at the Greek Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) central committee meeting on Saturday. Tsipras had been critical of both those country's standards during Greece's tough negotiations at the Eurogroup. The same speech included criticism of former conservative New Democracy prime minister Antonis Samaras line during the negotiations over recent week. Tsipras stated that Samaras had been in full cooperation with his fellow right-wing EU politician even though this meant working against Greece's interest. It is also suggested that Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho was involved in dealings to help bring down leftist forces in Europe.

Tsipras said that these collaborations were in an effort to help bring down movements that are seen as similar to SYRIZA in other countries, such as Podemos in Spain. He said that Rajoy was counting on Greece's failure in order to help him clamp down on Spanish resistence.

Rajoy voiced objections to Tsipras' statements, asking the Greek Prime Minister to be "serious" in his comments and accusing the new Greek government of separating European countries and citizens into those that are "friendly and unfriendly."

The SYRIZA government pointed to Spanish attacks against the Greek government on Twitter. The Spanish Prime Minister tweeted: "We feel solidarity with the Greek nation. It is not responsible for the behavior of the radical left." This tweet received a number of angered Spanish responses and a focus on Spanish matters such as the funding of the perilous Bankia credit institution.