By Jack Duffy

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos
Sunday declared that Greece would “always be a euro-area member state”
and that the government would do whatever was necessary to meet the
fiscal targets imposed by its EU partners.

Speaking at an event on the margins of the International Monetary
Fund and World Bank meetings, Venizelos said that Greece is trapped in
a “vicious circle” of austerity and recession and that it is intent on
restoring confidence by implementing the necessary economic reforms.

“It is Greece’s final and irrevocable decision to do whatever it
takes to fulfill its obligations towards its partners, towards the euro
area, towards the IMF,” Venizelos said.

Greece is waiting for the so-called troika — the IMF, the EU and
the European Central Bank — to agree to disburse an E8 billion aid
payment in the next few weeks. Without the payment, Greece could run
short of cash to pay public-sector salaries by the end of October.

The Greek finance minister said that in the past two weeks the
government has taken further measures, equal to 3% of GDP, to respect
its fiscal targets for 2011 and 2012.

The measures have included a further 20% cut in public sector
salaries, a further 4% cut in pensions and the creation of a labor
reserve to which 30 thousand public sector employees will move at
partial salary by the end of 2011.

Venizelos said Greece has made strenuous efforts to meet the demands
imposed by the two bailouts engineered by its EU partners but an
ever-deeper recession has made it difficult.

“We try to meet the fiscal targets while recession keeps pushing
them away,” he said. “We respond by introducing additional measures.
The political and social cost of the program rises.”

Venizelos said that while Greece has been at the center of the
sovereign debt crisis, it has not been the sole cause. The sovereign
debt problem is a global one, and Greece alone cannot be blamed for
causing an international crisis, he said.

“Greece is not the euro area’s central problem nor it can be the
catalyst for a new phase of the global financial crisis,” Venizelos
said. “The size of the Greek economy does not allow for such a role.”

He noted that Greece accounts for just 3% of the euro area’s public
debt and that Greece, Ireland and Portugal together account for just 6%.

“Greece is not the scapegoat of the euro area or the international
economy,” he said. “Greece is a historical and proud country, with
citizens who are doing many sacrifices to save it and see it recover.”

** Market News International Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

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