The President of the European Commission noted that Greece is on the right path and that the banks must be recapitalized. “The funding needs are lower than expected”, he said while he agreed that “we must deal with the Greek debt problem”, nevertheless rejecting a haircut.
“We had agreed in the November 2012 Eurogroup, that we could discuss payment dates and interests. But a an actual haircut is out of the question”, he added.
Concerning a possible Grexit, he stressed that he was always opposed to such a possibility since “had we allowed it, the same would have happened to others and not just small countries of the South”.
When asked if, starting with Monday's Eurogroup, the discussion of whether Greece will comply to the bailout terms might restart; he answered:”I don't believe that everything will start from the beginning again”.
“What is certain is that I will not participate again. The German government was of the opinion that I shouldn't have been part of it (the bailout negotiations) anyway. I did not do it. Because of that we reached a solution. I was not the only one who contributed, many others also helped. I don't believe that we will return to the beginning of the crisis”.
Mr.Juncker added that: “The Commissioner responsible was in Athens. He asked for further reform steps. I have also spoken with the Greek PM about those steps and I will meet the head of the Eurogroup, J. Djisselbloem on Monday, prior to meeting. I believe that Greece is, eventually on the right path. No one is immune to moments of weakness. But I now believe that things are on the correct route”.
The President added that the Greek crisis made him realize that the principle of solidarity in Greece is not that strong in the same manner that the principle of fiscal stability is not obvious in countries that are in a program.
“Both are necessary. Solidarity on one side and efforts for fiscal stability on the other. This is what we applied in Greece's case. We lost a lot of time because we were very slow. We allowed ourselves to be influenced by external “noise” like the German press. Many times we accepted Greeks to be described as lazy people who do nothing, people who don't know where they are heading” said Mr.Juncker and went on to stress that: “Greeks made a collective effort under very difficult circumstances. They would not have been able to achieve it without us, but to say that the Greeks made no effort, that the Greeks are corrupt, that all Greeks had not understood what was at stake, did not help the situation. We should have shown more respect towards the Greeks in the public discourse. Things would have been much easier”.
J.C.Juncker pointed at financial growth and unemployment as the most important problems of the continent explaining that this is what made him create a plan of investments worth 315bn euro.