Greece must make it clear, ahead of a crucial Eurogroup meeting in June 15, that a debt relief cannot be postponed constantly to the future without consequences, Yiannis Dragasakis vice-president of the Greek government said on Tuesday.
Addressing a 5th Greek Export Forum, Dragasakis said: “Debt sustainability is not something related only with the capability to service borrowing needs, but a country’s capability to exit a crisis and to make the necessary leap towards production reconstruction and extroversion. That’s why it is necessary and feasible that a Eurogroup meeting in June 15 to make, even in the last minute, what it did not do in the previous meetings, without any fundamental excuse and without any responsibility of the country, since everyone acknowledged that Greece has more than fulfilled its obligations.”
Dragasakis noted that a turn towards a productive reconstruction and extroversion was imperative for Greece, adding that the country must do in a relatively short period of time what it failed to do for decades. He stressed that Greece needed a new national plan for the future, its own strategy for development and prosperity and noted that this needed everyone’s involvement.
He said Greece must implement a new strategy to improve competitiveness of Greek exports and criticized previous policies based on a drastic reduction of wages, reducing labor rights and collective bargaining.
He underlined that the government, despite fiscal and other limitations, was creating the terms to strengthen structural competitiveness, which is based on higher added value, integrating research and innovation, exploiting knowledge, emerging models for a new socially-responsible, extrovert and innovative entrepreneurship.
Dragasakis also referred to the need for a institutional reconstruction of the state and of a new strategy to achieve the extroversion of Greek economy. “The Greek state needs a promotional role, wide and fundamental in planning, regulating, supporting, funding, organizing partnerships and synergies within the wider public are and between state, private and social agencies,” he said. He added that these changes cannot be made on terms of external imposition.
(Source: ANA-MPA)
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