Updated today 21:03.
Published today 19:29
The Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson (S) puts all the blame on Greece to negotiations with the Eurogroup collapsed. In a DN interview she dismisses the criticism, among others, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman against the lenders.
Finance Magdalena Andersson (S) puts all the blame on Greece to negotiations with the Eurogroup collapsed. In a DN interview she dismisses the criticism, among others, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman against the lenders.
– Situation is very serious. I must say I was very surprised when the Greeks said they wanted to call a referendum. It turned, so to speak throughout the hearing, said Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson.
It sounds like you put a lot of blame on Greece to the negotiations have foundered?
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– Yes, it is clear that it is the decision to call a folkomrösning who now makes that negotiations have broken down. And not least, the government said it would urge people to vote no. My view is that the euro countries have put considerable effort in order to find a solution that also Greece can accept. Just the fact that it has had four finance minister meetings on a weekly shows you that you really have tried to find a solution and get the Greeks to meet.
Now pull back the bid that Greece would hold a referendum on?
– Yes, well quite naturally. For although now the Greeks would vote yes – what is the credibility of a government who think they would not have voted to implement the necessary measures?
There are critics who argue that euro countries have driven demands for cuts for hard negotiations, and that you have not listened to the Greek proposals for tax increases. Among others, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, who wrote a blog post talked about the other day. What do you think about the criticism?
– My impression is that there have been quite a lot of flexibility from the euro countries to the Greeks themselves to develop a policy for the public finances should be in balance. But the requirement has been that man from the Greek side will come up with measures that are realistic and credible so that they also create long-term sustainability of public finances.
What is the biggest risk in the situation which has now arisen?
– It is crucial now is the opportunities that the European Central Bank looks to act in this situation. Greek banks’ve survived the past week because the ECB has helped them with money, but when there is no longer any aid schemes, the question of how the ECB will be looking at the situation.
What if the ECB decides to stop giving support to Greek banks?
– When the Greek banks are very big problems.
How can it affect Sweden ?
– We are not directly exposed to Greece. It’s not like when there was a crisis in the Baltic States, where Swedish banks were exposed. We also have a fairly limited trade with Greece. But it becomes a turbulence in the European financial markets, then Sweden may be affected. Although the Swedish krona could be affected, and thus also the Swedish export industry. Therefore we follow the situation very carefully from the finance ministry and the contingency if necessary measures are taken.
The finance ministers sit in the Saturday evening meeting to discuss the situation. It uses the word “consequences”. You interpret it as that it is now waiting for a major crisis?
– It depends a lot on how the markets will react to this news. It is of course impossible to predict. But the positive is that Europe is much stronger now than if this had happened a few years ago.
How hard is it to calculate the effects of this kind of situations? Is not it very complex?
– Well, that’s it. But today, the EU is much more stable, both in terms of the other countries’ public finances, but also because you have built up some mechanisms to The European Stability Mechanism, ESM (a new rescue fund for euro zone countries that get into financial crisis, DN note.)
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