–EMU Must Also Enact July 21 Summit Decisions For Good Of All
WROCLAW, Poland (MNI) – Greece knows that it must immediately
implement the fiscal reforms it has promised its international lenders
without further distractions, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos
told reporters here today.
“This is a big opportunity to send a clear message that we are on
the right track and we will implement the fiscal consolidation program,”
Venizelos told reporters on the sidelines of the Eurozone finance
ministers’ meeting here. “We must meet all targets for this year and the
next without delay, exceptions or any kind of derailments, and we must
implement the [private sector debt exchange] program.”
Venizelos said it was all the more important that Athens now walk
the straight and narrow path, because there is “great mistrust” in
Greece from the outside.
He also urged his Eurozone colleagues to approve and implement the
decisions taken by EMU leaders on July 21 both to provide Greece with
additional funding and to backstop the euro area more generally by
putting more teeth in its bailout fund, the European Financial Stability
Facility (EFSF).
“We believe that the implementation of the EMU agreement on 21st of
July is the only way to go forward — not only for Greece but for the
Eurozone as a whole,” Venizelos said. He said this was particularly
“vital for Greece.”
He also predicted that despite wrangling and resistance in some
national parliaments, the 17 member nations of the Eurozone would in the
end approve the proposed changes to the EFSF. These include allowing the
facility to buy sovereign bonds in the secondary market, thus relieving
the ECB of that duty; authorizing it to provide funds for bank
recapitalization, and to offer pre-emptive financing for countries like
Spain and Italy, which are under severe market pressure.
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–Angelika Papamiltiadou, a_papamiltiadou@hotmail.com
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