Fair taxation would be impossible in Greece, commented the prominent German historian and author Heinz Richter, in light of the new Greek government’s pledge of imposing heavier taxation to the privileged Greek society. “The rich were exempt from taxes since the birth of the Greek state in 1830”, said Richter speaking to German Radio Deutschlandfunk. According to GreekReporter news portal, Richter emphasized on the political culture in Greece, a crucial aspect of the country’s reality, noting that “the political culture in Greece differs from the rest of Western Europe because it is based on clientelism. It is a completely closed system. And so the political formulas that apply in Western Europe, do not work there”. The German historian also stressed that SYRIZA is no different from parties of the past, thus he doubts that it will rise to the expectations. “The current situation is amazingly similar to 1981 when Andreas Papandreou came to power using almost the same slogans Alexis Tsipras is using today”, he said.