The severe economic crisis in Greece was not caused by the memorandums, but by “unjustifiable fiscal policy”, Bank of Greece (BoG) governor Yannis Stournaras said on Monday, addressing a political event.
Stournaras, who served as the finance minister in the previous Samaras government and held high-ranking positions in Greek governments for more than a decade, underlined that the claim that memorandums brought about the crisis “… is completely false, and covers up reality.”
“The crisis in Greece has a name: A major risk over the Greek state’s default at the end of the 2000 decade, due, primary, to the unjustified expansionist fiscal policy that rocketed the budget deficit to incredible heights, through a major increase in state spending, and without the accompanying increase in state revenues. All that followed, including the memorandums, were efforts to avert default. These efforts, of course, had unpleasant repercussions; repercussions of a default, however, would be incalculable,” he said.
