



Citing what he said was a coming turnaround and even a return to markets by next year under his tenure, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said that talk of the country being forced out of the Eurozone, a so-called Grexit, and back to the drachma because of a still-lingering economic crisis is dead.

Speaking at an event to inaugurate a local branch of the German Hanns Seidel Foundation in cooperation with the Konstantinos G. Karamanlis Foundation, Samaras said that Greece has gone through an unprecedented fiscal crisis but said that it revealed “the weaknesses and contradictions of the European structure.”

“There was a time when the impression was that Greece’s ejection from the European family was inevitable,” the prime minister said, adding that “this view now belongs in the past.” He added: “It is a sad memory.”

“One year ago Greece was an example best avoided. Today the Greek success story is becoming a symbol of a new European dynamic,” Samaras said. He said, however, he’s still anxious about still-rising unemployment, already at a record 27 percent, and 64 percent for those under 25 and with the country in a sixth year of recession.

Samaras added, “how many countries could survive this? How many countries could succeed under such circumstances to push through such sweeping structural reforms without falling apart, without losing their cohesion and their sense of self-respect?”



