Να ρωτήσω γιατί μια συνέντευξη στις 27 Οκτωβρίου 2011 παρουσιάζεται τώρα και είναι η ακόλουθη;;;;;

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Η Ελληνική απόδοση είναι μέσα από το ΑΠΕ (παρουσιάσθηκε στις 2 Μαϊου 2012) ; Στο τime η συνέντευξη δημοσιεύτηκε στις 27 Οκτωβρίου 2011

Time: Ημασταν το πειραματόζωο, δήλωσε ο Γ. Παπανδρέου

Ο τέως πρωθυπουργός υπερασπίστηκε ξανά την απόφασή του για δημοψήφισμα

ΔΗΜΟΣΙΕΥΣΗ: 09:54 Πηγή: ΑΠΕ

«Ήμασταν το πειραματόζωο» δηλώνει στο περιοδικό «Time» ο τέως πρωθυπουργός Γιώργος Παπανδρέου, ανατρέχοντας στα όσα μεσολάβησαν τα τελευταία δύο χρόνια, στην ανάμειξη ευρωπαϊκών κυβερνήσεων στα πολιτικά πράγματα της χώρας, στα γεγονότα που οδήγησαν στην παραίτησή του, καθώς και στο γεγονός ότι η Ελλάδα ήταν η πρώτη χώρα στην ευρωζώνη που έπρεπε να αποδεχθεί επώδυνα μέτρα λιτότητας ως αντάλλαγμα για τα δάνεια διάσωσης.

«Δεν θα μπορούσαν να έχουν αποφευχθεί. Ήμασταν το πειραματόζωο» λέει χαρακτηριστικά.

«Τα μέτρα λιτότητας συνέθλιψαν την ελληνική οικονομία, η οποία διανύει την πέμπτη χρονιά ύφεσης. Το ποσοστό ανεργίας εκτοξεύτηκε από το 9% το 2009 στο 21% σήμερα. Αύξηση παρουσιάζουν και τα ποσοστά αυτοκτονιών. Δεκάδες χιλιάδες επιχειρήσεις έκλεισαν. Ορισμένοι από τους οικονομικά ασθενέστερους Έλληνες βρέθηκαν ξαφνικά άστεγοι και ζουν από τα συσσίτια» σχολιάζει η αρθρογράφος του Τime.

«Μακάρι να μπορούσαμε να το αντιμετωπίσουμε (σ.σ. την κρίση) με πιο ήπιο τρόπο για τον λαό, κυρίως γι' αυτούς που δεν έφταιγαν σε τίποτα, όπως οι μισθωτοί και οι συνταξιούχοι. Όμως τελικά όλοι πλήρωσαν και πλήρωσαν ακριβά» απαντά ο Γ.Παπανδρέου.

Ο τέως πρωθυπουργός εκφράζει την πικρία του για το γεγονός ότι ορισμένοι ευρωπαίοι ηγέτες, τους οποίους χαρακτηρίζει «λαϊκιστές», δεν αναγνωρίζουν τις θυσίες του ελληνικού λαού. «Ορισμένοι υποστηρίζουν ότι το πρόβλημα δεν είναι η Ελλάδα, αλλά οι Έλληνες. Πώς μπορεί ένας βουλευτής ή ένας ηγέτης να λέει από τη μία πλευρά ότι θα στηρίξει την Ελλάδα και, από την άλλη πλευρά, να χαρακτηρίζει τους Έλληνες τεμπέληδες;» διερωτάται.

Παράλληλα, υπερασπίζεται και πάλι την απόφασή του να προτείνει δημοψήφισμα, σημειώνοντας ότι ο λαός έπρεπε να αποφασίσει για να μην υπάρχει η αίσθηση ότι κάποιοι του επιβάλλουν το δεύτερο μνημόνιο.

«Έπρεπε να αποφασίσουμε εάν θέλουμε το δεύτερο πακέτο βοήθειας, εάν επιθυμούμε την παραμονή στην Ευρωζώνη και – εάν όχι – ποιες θα ήταν οι επιπτώσεις. Πίστευα ότι ο ελληνικός λαός θα έλεγε 'ναι', ότι θα ήταν δύσκολο αλλά πως θα ξεπεράσουμε την κρίση πάση θυσία».

Γι’ αυτό – συνεχίζει – τον δυσαρέστησε ιδιαίτερα το γεγονός ότι υπήρξαν αρνητικές αντιδράσεις στην Ευρώπη.

Σύμφωνα με το «Time», οι βουλευτικές εκλογές της Κυριακής αναμένεται να είναι οι πιο περίπλοκες εκλογές των τελευταίων δεκαετιών, καθώς κανένα κόμμα δεν φαίνεται πιθανό να καταφέρει να σχηματίσει αυτοδύναμη κυβέρνηση.

Το περιοδικό σημειώνει, επίσης, ότι οι εκλογές είναι άλλη μία ψηφοφορία κατά των μέτρων λιτότητας που, σε συνδυασμό με τις εκλογές στη Γαλλία και την προβλεπόμενη νίκη του Φρανσουά Ολάντ, θα μπορούσε να αλλάξει τη δυναμική της κρίσης στην Ευρωζώνη.

Η αγγλική συνέντευξη

Greek Prime Minister Praises European Debt Deal

By RACHEL DONADIO and NIKI KITSANTONIS

Published: October 27, 2011

ATHENS — Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece on Thursday hailed a broad new plan by European leaders and the International Monetary Fund to resolve the euro zone’s financial crisis as “a new day for Europe and for Greece.”

The accord, reached early Thursday morning in Brussels, includes an agreement by banks to accept a 50 percent loss on the face value of their Greek debt.

“The agreement allows us to make the necessary reforms without the burden of debt hanging around our necks,” Mr. Papandreou said, referring to Greece’s demanding — and unpopular — program of austerity measures and structural changes.

“Everyone needs to carry out his own personal revolution,” he said, calling on Greeks to support reforms.

But even as the agreement gave the country some much-needed breathing room, there were concerns about whether the reduction in Greek debt would help the nation’s rapidly shrinking economy, which has endured a credit crunch. For their part, Greek businesses were worried that the proposed nationalization of some banks might give the state too much control over the economy.

Some critics dismissed the accord, whose details were somewhat vague, as little more than window dressing.

“The most important problem is the bank capitalization,” said Yanis Varoufakis, an economist at the University of Athens, referring to a component of the plan that forces banks to raise new capital to protect themselves from possible sovereign debt defaults. “They didn’t specify how they were going to do it, or what they did say leaves a great amount of doubt.”

“It’s a complete fiasco,” he said of the new plan, “which is being once again paraded around as a great triumph.”

The new deal aims to bring down Greece’s debt to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020. Mr. Papandreou said Thursday that this would make the country’s debt “absolutely sustainable” and that there would be no more primary budget deficits. “From next year, we’ll be moving on to primary surpluses,” he said.

But many in Greece wondered how that could happen. The Greek economy contracted by 5.5 percent this year, and it is projected to shrink by 3 percent next year. Last month, the 2011 estimated budget deficit was increased to 9.5 percent of G.D.P., from 8.6 percent.

Greece’s once-protected public sector, which still employs one in five Greeks, has been hit by across-the-board wage cuts and planned layoffs, but with the credit crunch and the global economic slowdown, Greece’s private sector has been hit harder.

Unemployment is 16 percent and increasing. Since 2009, the Greek economy has lost all of the 320,000 jobs it created between 2000 and 2008, according to Savas Robolis, a labor market expert at the Greek General Confederation of Labor, the country’s main trade union.

“For a long time, banks have stopped giving loans to small businesses and they’re struggling,” Mr. Robolis said.

The banks’ agreement to accept a huge loss on their Greek debt “will force banks to sanitize their portfolios,” he said. “The liquidity, which has fallen, will be even worse if they’re not quick to recapitalize by March or April. If things don’t pick up, it will get ugly.”

Mr. Robolis, who has advised the government on pension reform, said that Greece’s pension funds, a portfolio worth about $34 billion, would also need an infusion of capital because of losses they were expected to incur in the write-down of Greek debt.

Even as Mr. Papandreou emphasized that the debt accord “creates new potential for growth and liquidity to return to the real economy,” the details of the recapitalization remained unclear.

In a news conference here, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said that the new $184 billion rescue package pledged by foreign creditors as part of the new deal would cover Greece’s financing needs and allow it to recapitalize its banks.

Of that package, $42.5 billion has been earmarked as incentives for banks participating in private sector involvement in the write-down, and another $42.5 billion would provide banks with new capital.

But half of the recapitalization fund, or $21.3 billion, would come from planned privatizations of Greek state assets — a program widely seen to have stalled — as well as from a new Greek-German solar energy project.

Mr. Papandreou said that some banks might be partially nationalized. “It is likely that some of the bank shares will pass into state ownership,” he said, without identifying any banks. He said that after banks were restructured, the shares would be sold back to the private sector.

Even before his announcement, business leaders were concerned about this possibility — and the paradoxes of using state money and intervention to stimulate the economy, while simultaneously trying to reduce the size of the Greek state to favor private enterprise.

“If there’s a big infusion of state money, that will put a further credit squeeze on the private sector,” said Dimitris Daskalopoulos, the president of Federation of Greek Industries, the nation’s leading business association. “We’re not happy about the growth of state intervention in the economy. The goal is to go the other way.”

There were some bright spots for Greeks in the new agreement. Mr. Venizelos, the finance minister, offered assurances that it would not require additional austerity measures. Beyond widespread popular anger, pushing such measures through Parliament has put the Socialist government in an increasingly weak position with its own members.

Mr. Venizelos said Greece had secured the next installment of its rescue financing from its foreign lenders, an $11 billion cash injection to be paid by mid-November, without which the country would have faced default.

Mr. Papandreou and Mr. Venizelos were quick to defend the fact that the accord would mean a permanent presence in Athens of Greece’s foreign lenders — the so-called troika of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund. This has ruffled the feathers of many Greeks who fear a loss of national sovereignty.

“Nothing in this deal sacrifices our right to take our own decision,” Mr. Papandreou said. “On the contrary, it will pave the way for us to freedom from dependency.”

But with deep austerity, a diminishing economy, political instability and now greater European oversight, the process so far has been painful.

“Greece has been the guinea pig of a startled Europe, an unprepared Europe,” said Mr. Daskalopoulos, the head of the business association. “Usually in an experiment, the guinea pig ends up dead.”

A version of this article appeared in print on October 28, 2011, on page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Greek Prime Minister Praises European Debt Deal.