AT

I had no choice. You have to look at what I and the Greek government were facing on June 25, at the agreement they were giving us. I have to admit that it was a very risky decision. Not only did the will of the Greek government go against the demands of the creditors; it collided with the international financial system, with Greece’s political and media system. They were all against us. The likelihood of our losing the referendum was so great that our European partners bet on it with their decision to close the banks.

But for us it was the only way since they were offering us an agreement with very difficult measures, somewhat like those we have in the present agreement, though slightly worse, but in any event difficult measures and also ineffective ones in my opinion. At the same time, they offered no possibility of survival.

In exchange for these measures, they offered 10.6 billion over five months. They wanted Greece, once it fulfilled its commitments, to take what remained of the previous program in terms of finance, without one euro more, because this is what the Netherlands, Finland, and Germany demanded.

The main political problem of the northern governments was that at all cost they wanted to avoid going before their parliaments to give even a single “fresh” euro to Greece, because they were trapped by the populist climate they had fomented, in which their populations were led to think that they were paying for the lazy Greeks. This is, naturally, completely false because they are paying for their banks, not for the Greeks.

What was the result of the Greek people’s strong position, against all odds, in the referendum? It was able to internationalize the problem, to make it spread beyond its borders, to unmask the image of the European partners and creditors. It was able to show international opinion the image not of a lazy people but of a people who are resisting and demanding justice and a future. We tested the limits of resistance of the eurozone. We had an impact on the relation of forces.

France, Italy, and the northern countries all had very different positions. The result, certainly, is very difficult, but, on the other hand, the eurozone had been brought to the limits of its resistance and cohesion. The next six months will be critical, and the relation of forces that will be built in this period are just as crucial. At this moment, the destiny and the strategy of the eurozone have been called into question.

There are several possibilities. Those who said “not a single euro more” have in the end decided not on just one euro but 83 billion. Therefore, from 10.6 billion over five months we’ve gone to 83 billion over three years, with the additional crucial feature of the commitment around debt reduction, to be discussed in November.

This is a key issue, determining whether Greece can enter on a path that gets it out of the crisis. We have to put an end to the tales told by Samaras and Venizelos, who claimed they were getting out of the memoranda.

The reality is that there was a hole in this tale, and that hole is the debt. With a debt at 180–200 percent of GDP, you cannot have a stable economy. The only path that we could take is that of debt reduction, cancellation, and relief. The condition for the country being able to gain some financial margin is that it no longer be obliged to run huge budget surpluses intended for a debt that is unpayable.