Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos made the following statements on the Greek economy, from New York, where his is participating the 69th UN General Assembly:
JOURNALIST: Will you give us an assessment of the results of the Merkel-Samaras meeting in Berlin?
E. VENIZELOS: Based on the briefing I have had from the Prime Minister, I think that the meeting with Ms. Merkel, in Berlin, was an important first step, because, as you know, we are moving in parallel on two levels: on the formal established level of the troika, but also on a higher, political level of a strategic nature, now that the programme is coming to completion and we have to organize the post-memorandum era, the era after the troika, the era of Greece’s return to European normalcy. Not the normalcy of the past, but the normalcy of the future, in a Greece that is robust and substantially equal within the European Union and the eurozone.
I have often spoken of the need for us to leave the regime of the Memorandum and the troika, because we are now in a position to resolve our problems through the existing, standing EU processes; through mechanisms like the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the European Central Bank. And, naturally, we all know that the presence of the IMF in the heart of the eurozone was a temporary, emergency measure. It cannot continue in the long term.
JOURNALIST: The IMF spokesperson said today that Greece’s withdrawal from the IMF has not yet been requested.
E. VENIZELOS: It hasn’t been requested – naturally, it hasn’t been requested – because we are still in discussions, and in order to make such a request, we have to have the support of our European partners. And we deserve to have support on everything, not just this specific matter. We haven’t specified our requests yet, because we have accomplishments. I remind you that the critical criterion, according to the decisions of the Eurogroup and the European Council, was the primary surplus. We have had the primary surplus since last year, since April 2013. It is also obvious that, beyond the fiscal accomplishments, there are structural accomplishments.
Of course, additional things have to be done, and the Greek people want a good European state, good public administration, good education, good justice. But let’s not forget what has been achieved so far, throughout these years, in major sectors like labor relations, social security, the competitiveness of the Greek economy. And I am talking about this issue, of course, because our number-one concern is creating jobs, confronting unemployment, and youth unemployment in particular. This cannot be done without an investment environment and without a real economy that moves with optimism and positive growth rates.”
September 26, 2014