by NEOnline | KT Here is a transcript of Juncker's statement at yesterday's European Economic and Social Committee 505th plenary session: Everything that’s called austerity policy is not necessarily austerity policy. Because often those austerity policies end up being excessive we have seen that in the so called ‘program countries’. I don’t like that expression because they are still countries; they just have more problems then others. See Also: Only Juncker can save Greece We are revising a number of things. Before the electoral campaign, I criticized the Troika not necessarily because I wanted too, because I think the ECB and IMF and Commission should be present in that structure. But I was just looking at the way it functioned and its democratic legitimacy. When the time comes it needs to be reviewed, I won't say anything about Greece, today, because I am involved in talks and negotiations. We talked a lot about Greece in the Commission, for hours, but in previous commissioner we didn’t talk about it at all because we blindly trusted in the Troika. They [Troika] always said they were confronted not with politicians but officials. I don’t criticize them, but you can’t say a minister is an official. We need to put them in front of Commission or under the authority of the president of the Eurogroup. We sinned against the dignity of the people in Greece, Portugal and sometimes Ireland. I was president of the Eurogroup, so maybe I seem stupid for saying this but we need to learn lessons from the past and not repeat the same mistakes. Of course that means there’s still a need to consolidate our public finances. We cannot live being dependent on future generations-- all of this depends on our action. There’s a need for structural reforms that increase the growth potential for Europe, but just calling it a structural reform does not mean it merits the name. Everything is lumped together under structural reform; we need to name the exact structural reforms we are talking about. See Also: Greek government reveals Eurogroup discussion file George as you say ‘the people of Europe speak to us,’ well, the people speak to us but they are not all saying the same thing. That’s the problem. I feel close to the Greek people because they are so unhappy. But if I talk on the same subject in the Netherlands, Austria or Germany the people are going to say something different... if I go to Slovakia, Cyprus or Malta where the minimum wage is lower than those of Greece then I have to hear a different message. So, you have to listen to all the people without distinction, and try to apply intelligence in developing the right policies.
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