Austerity without growth is not a solution. The Socialist candidate in the French presidential election Francois Hollande have understood this and included solutions for Greece in his pre-election campaign.
” We need to lighten the burden on Greece, Hollande said adding that if he beats Nicholas Sarkozy, he would “convince Greeks of the need for stability and coherence.”
Hollande described the Greek situation as a “vicious cycle” , stressed that the country is in a “very bad recession” and underlined that Greece “cannot take any more. Whatever the sacrifices, they are important … [but] they are not having the results in terms of deficit reduction desired by the international community and Europe.”
In a strong indication that he believes more can be done to help Greece get back on track to development, Hollande said: “Greece cannot utilise [EU] structural funds because it cannot support the components that are required for this. So we need to ensure that Greece can rediscover a level of growth.”
At a presidential-style news conference in Paris, the self-confident favourite said that leaders across Europe were awaiting his election to back away from German-inspired austerity, and he welcomed a call by ECB President Mario Draghi for a growth pact. Hollande said that the budget discipline treaty signed by 25 EU leaders in March would plunge Europe into a deep recession (further reading: Athens News)
PS Did you know that his political rivals call him “Hollandreou” in an effort to create negative associations connecting Hollande’s governance with the crisis in Greece and ex PM Papandreou who took the country to the IMF??
At the same time there are efforts to find an acronym combination to replace the German-French Axis of MERKOZY, with a new French-German axis that could be called “HOMER” I read somewhere on the internet.