"I hope the Eurozone stays at 19“, because “what we are playing is not a game of poker: either we all win or we all lose“, but now “the Greek government must tell the truth to its people”. The president of the European Commission said, Jean-Claude Juncker, during a press conference in Brussels, just over 24 hours after Greece's bankruptcy, which now appears inevitable, as Athens' debts to the IMF of 1,6 billion dollars are due tomorrow at midnight and negotiations are now broken off from Friday evening. On Sunday, when it will be too late to avoid bankruptcy, the Greek people will go to the polls to say via referendum whether or not they consider the package of measures proposed by Europe acceptable.
It was said that Juncker could have proposed a new package of measures today, in extremis, but that was not the case. The proposals on the table are those already announced by Brussels and the number one of the Commission he explicitly urged Greek voters to vote yes in Sunday's poll, because a negative vote would mean “saying no to Europe. If, on the other hand, the Greek people vote yes, it would mean that Greece wants to stay with the others. I will tell the Greeks, whom I love deeply, that one shouldn't commit suicide because one is afraid of dying. You have to vote yes regardless of the question asked."
On a personal level, “I am saddened by the spectacle that Europe gave of itself last Saturday – continued Juncker -. Selfishness, tactical games and populisms have prevailed. After all the effort we made, I felt a bit cheated. Dramatization of points of disagreement trumped collaboration for the common good. There was no blackmail on our part, no measures to be taken or left, the Commission and the Eurogroup do not deserve all the criticisms that have been leveled at them”.
Rather, according to Juncker, “on Friday, while we were still working to find an agreement, the negotiation was broken up by the Greek government, which called the referendum and started propaganda for a no. This does not help any Greek citizen. All the governments of countries in difficulty have taken unpopular decisions, paying the political price, as happened in Ireland or Portugal, but this is how it should be: the responsibilities of personal biographies come first".
As for the package of measures proposed by creditors, Juncker assured that “they did not contain cuts in wages or pensions. They weren't stupid austerity measures: some interventions would have been heavy in the short term, but the burden of the fiscal adjustment had been lightened by 12 billion and the objective was to put the country back on the path of growth”.
On the salary front, “what we asked for was to review the salary grid in the public sector and the bargaining model in the private sector. As far as pensions are concerned, however, the Greek government itself admits that the current system is not sustainable. One can start, for example, by removing incentives for early retirement. We then supported the need to fight corruption and reduce the privileges enjoyed by shipowners. This package also means more growth and more investment. The Greeks must know that, for our part, the door remains open".
