Former ECB vice president on economic crisis

Former European Central Bank vice president and honourary Bank of Greece governor Lucas Papademos, in an address on the theme of “Fiscal restructuring and monetary stability”, said that Greece’s fiscal adjustment and the exit from the crisis will not be easy and brief without the taking of bold measures.

Papademos added that there must be no illusions of painless solutions for imbalances and the ineffectiveness of decades to be reversed that led to the present economic situation, stressing that the government has taken so far difficult and politically bold decisions.
He reiterated many times that if a substantive and permanent fiscal restructuring is not achieved, monetary stability will not be achieved and the country will be unable to exit from the crisis.

Referring to the issue of the restructuring of the country’s debt, he said that it is neither a desirable nor a necessary solution for the country as well as the eurozone. Papademos further said that the socially fair distribution of the cost of fiscal adjustment is necessary for social tensions to be avoided that will make the implementation of the goals that will lead to the exit from the crisis difficult.