Brussels, 26/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 26 May the European Commission provided its own interpretation of statements by EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki warning fellow Greeks against returning to the drachma if an even stricter austerity programme were not successfully carried out. A Commission spokesperson said her comments were intended to convince Greeks of the need to step up the reforms and make progress in budget consolidation, aware that this would not be easy. On her personal website, Maria Damanaki said that either Greece agreed with its donors on a programme of hard sacrifices that would bring in results, taking responsibility for the country's past, or it would return to the drachma. This is the first time that a politician of such a high rank has discussed such a scenario.
Europeans are still refusing to consider the idea of any struggling eurozone country abandoning the single currency. A spokesperson for the Commission said there were no talks at the Commission or Eurogroup about such speculation. On Thursday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said that even the world's greatest economists have never been able to explain how to solve a temporary crisis of a single currency. Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said in Paris on Wednesday that neither the Greek government nor the Greek people had the idea of leaving the euro. He said that the current debate about a restructuring of Greece's debt was dangerous, adding that Greece would return to a good situation when the economy picked up. (M.B./transl.fl)