:00:03. > :00:12.Grammy Awards in the United States. It is time now for HARDtalk. Good
:00:12. > :00:16.night. I am in Athens at the headquarters
:00:16. > :00:21.of the officers of the former Socialist prime minister, George
:00:21. > :00:26.Papandreou, who resigned in the throes of the debt crisis. Now that
:00:26. > :00:30.the country is to receive the bail out of 130 billion euros he is
:00:30. > :00:35.talking exclusively to HARDtalk for the first time since he stepped
:00:35. > :00:38.down from office in November. Did he believe he was in any way
:00:38. > :00:43.responsible for the current predicament that Greece finds
:00:43. > :00:53.itself in an ball was he thinking when he made what many said was an
:00:53. > :01:00.
:01:00. > :01:05.ill judged to call for a referendum on the austerity measures.
:01:05. > :01:11.George Papandreou, welcome to HARDtalk. They re nice to be with
:01:11. > :01:16.you. The latest bail out deal, does it mean Greece will avoid going
:01:16. > :01:21.bankrupt? This is an historic decision. We have turned a page for
:01:21. > :01:27.Greece and for Europe. Greece will not go bankrupt and will not end as
:01:27. > :01:32.at the eurozone. We still have a prospect ahead of last but we are
:01:32. > :01:37.given a positive outlook because they raised a great sense of
:01:37. > :01:43.insecurity. All the talk about the possible default, exiting the
:01:43. > :01:47.eurozone. We can say that we are in a situation where we have much more
:01:47. > :01:53.security, they secured road for changes and reform. No sooner has
:01:53. > :02:00.the deal being struck and people say you are staving off the
:02:00. > :02:05.inevitable. One report from Reuters news agency, dated 15th February,
:02:05. > :02:11.quoted international experts saying you are going to have to default on
:02:11. > :02:21.their debts at some time. I would like to answer to some of these
:02:21. > :02:22.
:02:22. > :02:28.international experts. We will not the fault and they said the euro
:02:28. > :02:38.and this is, this deal has clenched the best prospect. It means we need
:02:38. > :02:44.to do hard work. I would also demand more respect. We have made
:02:44. > :02:52.major sacrifices. From who? International analysts and people
:02:52. > :02:58.in the market. A D mean by that? There is a lot of pressure on
:02:58. > :03:04.Greece, speculation about what will happen with Greece. This has
:03:04. > :03:13.created great pain in Greece. It has even contributed to the
:03:13. > :03:18.recession because people invest, people are not consuming and
:03:18. > :03:23.foreigners are not investing. you accept that as the finance
:03:23. > :03:29.minister has said, there are forces in Europe trying to push Greece out
:03:29. > :03:34.of the euro? I believe there is a minority view that people, some
:03:34. > :03:39.people felt that if Greece left the euro it might be a solution. I
:03:39. > :03:49.believe this would be a catastrophe for Greece, the Greek people who
:03:49. > :03:59.will endure much more pain. Second -- secondly the effect will swear.
:03:59. > :04:01.
:04:01. > :04:08.I say to you, before the deal was struck it was said that there is a
:04:08. > :04:12.view that if one country is pushed out of the euro, it would mean that
:04:12. > :04:18.others would have to follow. The structure collapses. This is just
:04:18. > :04:28.not true, it was said. Do you want to take the risk is the question.
:04:28. > :04:35.We have seen that when Greece was put into a bail out programme,
:04:35. > :04:41.other countries followed. When there was fear of default, it
:04:41. > :04:48.spreads the cost of borrowing - it rose for Portugal, for Ireland,
:04:48. > :04:54.Belgium, France. Nobody can guarantee they will not be
:04:54. > :05:04.contagion. Some body as mainstream as that says it is not true that
:05:04. > :05:06.
:05:06. > :05:10.the structure would collapse. She is Ron? It is hopeful thinking. We
:05:10. > :05:17.could be very sure that if we don't take all the measures, this could
:05:17. > :05:22.unravel. For the rest of Europe? For the rest of Europe. What we are
:05:22. > :05:27.doing is important for the Greek people and also for the future of
:05:27. > :05:32.the eurozone. I will talk to you about what you're doing in Greece
:05:32. > :05:39.in a moment but to carry on with this, I want to say to you what is
:05:39. > :05:43.being said in Europe now. The Swedish finance minister says, "The
:05:43. > :05:48.Greeks remain in their tragedy but I think we have reduced this to
:05:48. > :05:58.just a great problem. It is no longer a threat to the rest of the
:05:58. > :06:00.
:06:00. > :06:10.zone." I believe fighting the problems in Greece, for Greece is
:06:10. > :06:11.
:06:11. > :06:21.helping the euro two survived. to survive. We are linked in the
:06:21. > :06:26.
:06:26. > :06:35.eurozone with the common currency. Why should people care, you like --
:06:35. > :06:40.you are 2%. Even though we moved quite quickly for Europe, we moved
:06:40. > :06:46.slowly for the markets and this has put more pain on Greece. Greece is
:06:46. > :06:51.also seen as a precedent for other countries. That is what will create
:06:51. > :06:58.fear in the markets. They will tell you that whatever happens in Greece
:06:58. > :07:08.will be seen, whether we liked it or not, it will be seen as a
:07:08. > :07:09.
:07:09. > :07:17.precedent. You are sure of that? You don't think opinion has shifted,
:07:17. > :07:21.others seeing it as just a problem for Greece? I would say it is not
:07:21. > :07:26.the case. I would also say that there are other issues Europe must
:07:26. > :07:33.now address which have to do with four to find the euro. It has
:07:33. > :07:43.nothing to do with Greece as such, Europe more widely. Common Borel
:07:43. > :07:50.
:07:50. > :07:54.wing such as eurobond. -- borrowing. Under the deal the country has to
:07:54. > :07:57.accept that the economic monitoring commission will make sure that you
:07:58. > :08:04.do abide by the tough austerity measures that the coalition
:08:04. > :08:11.government has signed up to. You only get the 130 billion euros -
:08:11. > :08:16.and you get it in parts. You will be watched. People are saying that
:08:16. > :08:22.Greece is not sovereign, it is being governed by Berlin. This is
:08:22. > :08:26.something that we all want to bring back our own pride, our sense of
:08:26. > :08:33.autonomy, if you like. That is what we need to do. We need to build up
:08:33. > :08:43.our own strengths. The umbilical cord has to be broken and we have
:08:43. > :08:43.
:08:43. > :08:49.to be able to stand on our own feet. Off we have great potential in
:08:49. > :08:59.developing green energy, creating a tourist industry that is more
:08:59. > :09:07.robust, great agricultural products that are not dependent on money
:09:07. > :09:14.from the European Union. You have got a long way to go. You know
:09:14. > :09:20.tourism only account for 20% of your foreign currency earnings. You
:09:20. > :09:26.have to import most of your food. That is what we have to work on,
:09:26. > :09:36.make the changes. That is why we need time. This deal gives us
:09:36. > :09:46.breathing space. If you deliver. On the question of sovereignty, the
:09:46. > :09:48.
:09:48. > :09:56.efforts of Chancellor of -- Chancellor Merkel. I think we need
:09:56. > :10:03.much more democracy in our European institutions. We need, not only in
:10:03. > :10:13.Greece but in Europe, people feel that there is a ownership in the
:10:13. > :10:17.
:10:17. > :10:22.programme. Right now people feel this Tim -- people do not feel
:10:22. > :10:29.empowered. This is a question for Europe. You see it from the German
:10:29. > :10:39.point of view - they say why should we work until we are 65 so that
:10:39. > :10:40.
:10:40. > :10:50.great train drivers can retire at 50. -- so that Greek train drivers.
:10:50. > :10:54.
:10:54. > :10:59.D had sympathy with that view? -- do you have. None of the problems
:10:59. > :11:03.we have had in the eurozone which makes it quite unique, we are a
:11:03. > :11:07.family but we haven't really understood how deeply
:11:07. > :11:12.interconnected we are in Europe. That is why we need more economic
:11:12. > :11:18.governance. We need to get away from populism, prejudice and
:11:18. > :11:25.extremism. I have seen it around Europe around this problem. Forces
:11:26. > :11:35.that are prejudicial, even sometimes racist trying to escape
:11:35. > :11:45.but what the problems are. I would say it is popular forces that are
:11:45. > :11:47.
:11:47. > :11:53.prejudicial. For example, it was said at times that Greeks are lazy.
:11:53. > :11:58.We work more hours in the OECD than anyone. Is that the case? The train
:11:58. > :12:04.drivers' work three days a week, retire at 50. We have to solve
:12:04. > :12:09.those problems. We have made major changes. Truck drivers, we have
:12:09. > :12:19.opened up the profession. 150 professions have been opened up. We
:12:19. > :12:20.
:12:20. > :12:27.Looking at your record, when you said you were campaigning, he said
:12:27. > :12:30.at the time on the campaign trail that the money was the. Obviously
:12:30. > :12:36.because you are head of the Socialist Party and a keen on
:12:36. > :12:45.public spending, that was the campaign platform. That was not the
:12:45. > :12:49.campaign flat -- platform. I said there was money but we have to see
:12:49. > :12:55.where we were going and we do find it. We could find it through tax
:12:55. > :13:01.evasion, taxing the rich, find it through waste,... You did not do
:13:01. > :13:07.any of that. We have done more reform than any government in the
:13:07. > :13:14.last 30 years in just two years. You were supposed to privatise
:13:14. > :13:18.billions of euros. He signed a deal with the IMF in a 2010 and you were
:13:18. > :13:23.supposed to make a very severe budget cuts to try and reduce the
:13:23. > :13:28.number of Public Employees and by a thousands. You do not managed to do
:13:28. > :13:33.that. So many targets you were offered. The ad is not true. 30,000
:13:33. > :13:39.public employees were supposed to be lost by 2010. -- that is not. We
:13:39. > :13:44.have reduced close to 30,000 public civil servants. We have hit tax
:13:44. > :13:54.evasion and waste. For example, we had prescriptions from doctors and,
:13:54. > :13:54.
:13:54. > :14:04.I will keep it blunt, big pharmaceutical companies to
:14:04. > :14:10.oversubscribed. On privatisation, we are not privatising now. We will
:14:10. > :14:17.not until the market sees that Greece is moving in a positive
:14:17. > :14:21.direction. That would not be good for the Greek economy or paying off
:14:21. > :14:29.debt. We can get more through privatisation if we get Wael
:14:29. > :14:37.important investors who really want to develop our economy and our
:14:37. > :14:42.industries. -- get we'll important. Qatar is investing in a beautiful
:14:42. > :14:47.spot. They will be waiting to see... Whether you stay in the do or not.
:14:47. > :14:53.The exactly. But looking at your role specifically... But this is
:14:53. > :14:58.where the deal is imported. It gives us security and the investor
:14:58. > :15:08.security. If you invest in Greece... You think the deal is still well?
:15:08. > :15:12.
:15:12. > :15:17.Yes. 150,000 2050 employees by 2015? -- employees by. The pension
:15:17. > :15:25.system has already been revamped. We have already put assets into a
:15:25. > :15:29.privatisation holding. But did you actually... I spoke to the Finance
:15:29. > :15:33.Minister under the outgoing government before you. He said you
:15:33. > :15:36.found a terrible situation. He blamed the previous government and
:15:36. > :15:40.said the budget deficit was worse than you thought but he took a
:15:41. > :15:46.while in getting your act together and going to the IMF. Did you go to
:15:46. > :15:51.the IMF too late, to the EU? Do you think you signed up to a deal that
:15:51. > :15:56.was the wrong one for Greece when you see what is going on now?
:15:56. > :16:01.of all, for 5.5 years, the previous government almost doubled the debt
:16:01. > :16:05.from 180 billion to 320 billion. And they did nothing as far as
:16:05. > :16:09.reforms are concerned. I was personally hit with a huge
:16:09. > :16:18.responsibility which I was glad and honoured to take on. It was a very
:16:18. > :16:26.dire situation. It was impossible to not think about my political
:16:26. > :16:31.future. I had to say I would save my country. Let me answer your
:16:31. > :16:37.previous question, I do not want to go to the IMF but we needed to
:16:37. > :16:40.prepare for it. We did prepare for it. We did not have such a
:16:40. > :16:46.mechanism before. It is the biggest bail-out programme in humanity's
:16:46. > :16:52.history which we got. I hoped the markets would allow us more time to
:16:52. > :16:56.make the necessary changes. I had to initially convinced by partners
:16:56. > :17:02.in the EU to say I would make the reforms are. And we are making them.
:17:02. > :17:09.Taking the public sector, changing the pensions, which consolidated
:17:09. > :17:13.1,500 local governments to 300 governments. So what went wrong?
:17:13. > :17:18.Did you think you make -- made any personal mistakes? For a new take
:17:18. > :17:26.action in anything you do, you can always go back and say you should
:17:26. > :17:31.have done it a certain way. -- when you take action. We could have
:17:31. > :17:41.pushed even further structural changes, even more quickly. Even
:17:41. > :17:49.though it was difficult with the Civil Service which was not ready.
:17:50. > :17:59.You have a bloated state sector? Yes. It is hugely bloated. A state
:18:00. > :18:01.
:18:01. > :18:06.that came out of four for -- or thought -- dictatorships. This
:18:06. > :18:13.country has been led by the PASOK party for eight years. Your party
:18:14. > :18:17.must take the blame. Not just eight years. It was approximately two
:18:17. > :18:27.parties. The new democracy and PASOK party. It has mostly been
:18:27. > :18:28.
:18:28. > :18:38.your party. We can look at the dates but I am proud that PASOK
:18:38. > :18:43.party made huge reforms. If you were slightly liberal reading, you
:18:43. > :18:48.could not get a job in the public sector. But you kept the bloated
:18:48. > :18:52.state institutions. Should you have done more faster? And looking back,
:18:52. > :18:58.we tried to create a more equal society. We tried to give more
:18:58. > :19:03.benefits to people. But also, being in the European Union, it helped us
:19:03. > :19:07.not to look at some of our weaknesses. It helped us find money
:19:07. > :19:12.that we did not always invest in areas that would make us
:19:12. > :19:22.competitive. Also, there were mistakes made on the European side.
:19:22. > :19:25.
:19:25. > :19:31.For example, we were a test case. Like a rat lab... Or a lab rat.
:19:31. > :19:35.Nobody had faced such a situation in the EU. The programme they gave
:19:35. > :19:43.us, it had high interest rates, much higher than Portugal and
:19:43. > :19:46.Ireland afterwards. That changed only yesterday. Secondly, the
:19:47. > :19:52.proposal from France and Germany. If you lend to countries that are
:19:52. > :19:59.high risk and made a fault, you as the banks will pay for it. That
:19:59. > :20:07.statement pushed a programme that was on track. And then Portugal and
:20:07. > :20:12.Ireland were next. But that created such a fear and exciting in Greece
:20:12. > :20:16.and the round Greece which brought recession. I must ask you about the
:20:16. > :20:22.referendum. He received a great deal of criticism about that. In
:20:22. > :20:26.November 2011, he said he wanted a referendum. You never said
:20:26. > :20:30.specifically. If you want to ask the Greek people to stay in the
:20:30. > :20:40.euro or were you going to ask them whether they accepted the austerity
:20:40. > :20:44.package? The referendum question was whether they accepted the
:20:44. > :20:48.measures of austerity, the programme. They would keep us in
:20:48. > :20:54.the euro. That was the question. But have you not already decided
:20:54. > :20:58.that when you signed the deal with the IMF in May of 2010? I had
:20:58. > :21:02.decided that as prime minister of the country. But I believe the
:21:02. > :21:07.ownership of this programme, and you can even see today some people
:21:07. > :21:11.say, will be parties accept this? Will be Greeks accept this? I
:21:11. > :21:15.believe a referendum would have been positive. Why did you feel you
:21:15. > :21:19.have to go in the end? It would have been a positive yes and it
:21:19. > :21:24.would have been an ownership of the programme. The Greek people would
:21:24. > :21:28.have owned it. I want to get the insides into your thinking at the
:21:28. > :21:35.time when he resigned. What was going through your mind? Did you
:21:35. > :21:40.feel dejected, that you have failed? Not at all. I tried to
:21:40. > :21:44.create a wider consensus around very difficult programmes. One
:21:44. > :21:50.which I as a socialist would have to take measures that might
:21:50. > :21:58.otherwise would not have done. Heard people on the main street, if
:21:58. > :22:03.you like, wage earners. There are now taking a lot of the brand. --
:22:03. > :22:09.hurt. I would have liked to see more of a reformed. But the crisis
:22:10. > :22:13.killed your political career in Greece? Let me finish this. The
:22:13. > :22:19.burden would have been equally shared by the rich and that would
:22:19. > :22:23.have taken... Would have been the major role structural reforms. --
:22:23. > :22:28.major structural. If we had done that, we could have solved this
:22:28. > :22:32.problem without all of this pain. Or at least less pain. What
:22:32. > :22:36.happened of course is that once we reached a point when we needed to
:22:36. > :22:41.take new measures, I said to take this to the Greek people. Otherwise,
:22:41. > :22:46.if we did not go to a referendum, the alternative would have been a
:22:46. > :22:50.wider coalition government. With a wider consensus. When I proposed
:22:50. > :22:55.the referendum, immediately we had a reaction from other parties and
:22:55. > :23:02.some party said, OK, we are ready to discuss the collision. It was my
:23:02. > :23:07.proposal and gladly, we do have a coalition government. Part of the
:23:07. > :23:17.idea was I would step down and we at
:23:17. > :23:17.
:23:17. > :23:22.was more politically neutral. If a politician wants to be honest with
:23:22. > :23:27.him for himself, it needs to be ready to make very difficult
:23:27. > :23:32.decisions, whether they hurt or not the political career. Forgetting
:23:32. > :23:36.about the polls, forgetting about the circumstantial political
:23:37. > :23:44.situation. Looking for the benefit of the future of his or her country
:23:44. > :23:48.and the benefit of his or her people. No regrets? No. I believe