88 Quotes by George Papandreou

If we were the problem, it would be very convenient – kick Greece out, everything’s fine. What would happen to Spain, what about Portugal, what about Italy, what about the whole of the euro zone? We need more cooperation and less simplification and prejudice.

Markets are saying pretty much what I’m saying too: that Greece is doing what it can, but that Greece is not going to be able to carry the weight of all of Europe and the other problems that Europe has.

If Greece had gone through a very normal political life, I may have not been in politics. But just the fact that I lived through huge upheavals and very difficult struggles and polarization and the barbarism of dictatorships – that made me feel that we had to change this country.

How can a parliamentarian or a leader in a country say, on the one hand, that we’re going to support Greece but at the same time say that Greeks are lazy?

We Greeks want change. We know there are problems in our system. We have great potential but we need to manage our country well. Now that hasn’t been done over the last decades. And that is, of course, what we are paying for.

Greece’s history in the drachma was an up-and-down history, a roller coaster.

Greece has given Europe the opportunity to fix a defect in the euro zone, that is the fact that we did not have a fiscal union. Now steps have been taken to begin that process. And there is more solidarity from nation to nation, and that is a good thing. That has been Greece’s gift to Europe.

But sovereign debt is a wider question not only in Europe but across the globe. While every country is a unique case, I think it’s not an issue of countries acting on their own. We need a more coordinated strategy not only in Europe but around the world.

If we were going to default, we would have decided that many months ago. It would be wrong for the Greek economy, it would be wrong for the European economy, it would make things worse in the end. That’s why we’re taking the pain and making these structural reforms, and we’re on target.