Greek finance minister says most troika reforms ‘absolutely necessary’

{"text":[[{"start":10.3,"text":"Many of the painful economic reforms imposed on Greece as a condition of its international bailout were “absolutely necessary”, the country’s finance minister has acknowledged."}],[{"start":20.9,"text":"Athens was forced by its troika of international lenders to slash spending and liberalise the economy to access more than €250bn in financial assistance between 2010 and 2018. "}],[{"start":33.3,"text":"The European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF were blamed by many Greeks for the hardest years of the debt crisis, when the nation was blighted by mass unemployment and political upheaval. "}],[{"start":45.449999999999996,"text":"But Greece is now one of only five countries in the EU running a primary budget surplus, where its tax revenues exceed government spending, excluding interest payments, according to the IMF. "}],[{"start":57.05,"text":"Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Greece’s finance minister and president of the Eurogroup, told the FT: “There were many reforms within those stabilisation programmes which were absolutely necessary.”"}],[{"start":68.89999999999999,"text":"“They were the sine qua non of being able to achieve today’s performance,” Pierrakakis said in an interview, referring to the Latin phrase that implies an essential condition."}],[{"start":79.35,"text":"However, Pierrakakis said the troika’s handing of Greece had both “positive” and “negative” aspects."}],[{"start":85.64999999999999,"text":"“I would suggest that in the future we learn the lessons of that implementation and we try, if there is any country that will be in need, to implement what worked rather than what didn’t,” he added."}],[{"start":96.8,"text":"The IMF last week said Greece was now “well positioned to cope with external shocks, including those stemming from the war in the Middle East”, in part because of its reforms after 2010 to improve tax collection."}],[{"start":109.25,"text":"Some of the architects of the troika’s programme now admit that they came at an excessive social cost."}],[{"start":115.95,"text":"The painful reforms, which also tackled areas such as pensions and the labour market, led to a brutal 25 per cent reduction in Greece’s GDP between 2008 and 2013. "}],[{"start":128.45,"text":"Unemployment surged to 26.6 per cent in 2014 from 8 per cent before the crisis. Protests in central Athens against austerity measures became a daily occurrence."}],[{"start":141.39999999999998,"text":"“We had excessive austerity [in Greece]. I think one has to acknowledge that,” said Marco Buti, former director of the European Commission’s economic and fiscal policy department."}],[{"start":153.04999999999998,"text":"“All those reforms in that period of deep crisis under that pressure was not fair and actually quite destructive,” said former president of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem. “Did we handle it well? No. Are we better [off]? Yes, but with a high price.”"}],[{"start":168.64999999999998,"text":"By the end of this year, Greece will no longer be the Eurozone’s most indebted country. Its gross debt, which peaked at more than 209 per cent of GDP in 2020, is projected to fall to 137.6 per cent of GDP this year, below that of Italy."}],[{"start":185.2,"text":"“Many things have changed,” Pierrakakis said."}],[{"start":188.39999999999998,"text":"The country formally exited the bailout programme in 2018, allowing it to complete repayment of its IMF loans ahead of schedule in 2022. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":198.29999999999998,"text":"GDP growth in countries whose debt crises once pushed the Eurozone close to breaking point, also including Portugal, Ireland and Spain, now outpaces expansion in the currency area’s “core” economies of Germany and France."}],[{"start":211.2,"text":"While debt-to-GDP ratios are expected to decrease in those four countries by 2027, they will keep rising in the Eurozone as a whole and in Italy, France and Belgium, according to European Commission forecasts."}],[{"start":224.5,"text":"Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told an FT Energy conference in Athens last week that it was an “interesting analogy” that those countries are “actually doing fiscally much better than the others these days”. "}],[{"start":237.55,"text":"“The countries that implemented reforms 10 to 15 years ago are the ones outperforming the rest of [the] Euro area right now,” Luis de Guindos, Spain’s outgoing vice-president of the European Central Bank, told the FT in a recent interview. "}],[{"start":252.70000000000002,"text":"“You could argue that there were some problems in terms of ownership and the imposition by the troika, but the reality is that, at the end of the day, the reforms paid off,” he said."}],[{"start":263,"text":"Additional reporting by Olaf Storbeck in Frankfurt"}],[{"start":274.25,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1779359215_5658.mp3"}