Departed EC President Comments On Greek Debt
Departed Eurogroup head and candidate for European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker did not dismiss the possibility of a new condition for Greek debt, as reported in Germany's Stuttgarter Zeitung interview.
According to Kathemirini, Juncker discussed the "excessive social harshness" that many times plagues financial support programs. He commented that Greece is on the right recovery path. In the interview, the former Eurogroup official stated he didn't believe troika spent enough time analyzing the nation's predicament, just as it had not in Ireland and Portugal. He promised that if he was the EC president, he would successfully finish each program through its entirety.
Concerning if Greece would qualify for additional debt reduction, providing it meets all memorandum goals, Juncker claimed, "It is not something that I would wish on any Eurogroup president to do again but it's not something that I rule out absolutely". Yet, he did knock down Eurobond provisions, adding that when he discussed them in 2010, "no tools for defense against the crisis...Things aren't like that today".
