On Friday 31 May 2013 the Crisis Observatory of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Athens organised a lecture of President  og Eurogroup and Minister of Finance of the Netherlands, Jeroen Dijsselbloem. The title of his speech was: “Working together towards European recovery”. Professor Loukas Tsoukalis, President of ELIAMEP moderated the discussion, the video of which is available here.

Mr Dijsselbloem focused on the ways to overcome the challenges in the eurozone and on how to deliver sustainable growth. Conscious of the difficult times that Greece is going through and of the enormous efforts made by the Greek people, he identified a number of positive signs for the future of the Greek economy and acknowledged the fact that Greece is making progress in the right direction: towards growth and jobs. Furthermore, he referred to the strategy of the eurogroup, which is based on the following three pillars:

  • Continuation of the fiscal adjustment in a sensible way in order to put back public finances on a sustainable path
  • Addressing the problems that led to the collapse of the financial sector and promoting the completion of a banking union
  • Promoting structural reforms needed to enhance competitiveness and boost growth.

Mr Dijsselbloem also mentioned the following key priorities for Greece:

  • Tackling economic imbalances in order to ensure long term fiscal sustainability
  • Persevere with the implementation of the structural reforms’ programme
  • Making use of the strategic geographical position of the country. Greece processes a wealth of human capital and natural resources that will allow it to become competitive on a global scale. 
You can find the speech here.