"Greece has to decide if it wants to be a normal country." This was stated by Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, answering questions from the participants of the Executive Summit on Ethics for Business World meeting today in the Vatican. For Bini Smaghi, member of the executive committee of the European Central Bank, "Greece is not a poor country but an advanced economy, it is in its hands to make the right choices for the poor".
"And it is a pity - he added - the strange game of the Greek opposition in view of the vote on the country's austerity program". We see that it is very difficult to be normal like others, because there are difficult choices to make, but they are choices already made by other countries in the past." Bini Smahi spoke quite directly. “The point is: does Greece want to be solvent? Do you want to sell your assets to pay off the debt? Do you want to make the reforms that are needed to get your taxes paid? Do you want to reduce military spending?”. The economist points out that "it is a political question". Well, "even if Greece has already reformed its pensions, it still has many other reforms to do" but the alternative would be much worse, because default is a disaster for a country".
Meanwhile the Italian government has officially asked Lorenzo Bini Smaghi to resign from his position on the board of the ECB to make room for a French candidate. “Yes, there is an official government request to Dr. Bini Smaghi to resign from the European central bank,” Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said, confirming that he had an appointment at Palazzo Chigi with Bini Smaghi on this issue immediately after the press conference. . “To obtain France's approval of our candidate for the European Central Bank Mario Draghi – added the premier -, there must also be a French director in the ECB”.
