Papandreou: “Without the bailout, Greece would have defaulted”

The president of the Movement of Socialists Democrats and former Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou gave a televised interview on Wednesday, where he addressed many of the accusations regarding his administration in 2009.

Mr. Papandreou argued that the bailout agreement was a necessary “medicine” to avoid a default, while stressing that the previous governments, particularly theKaramanlis government the preceded his, resulted in the financial crisis. The former PM further claimed that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the EU forced the Greek government to resort to the IMF for assistance.

He also dismissed the rumors of having discussed IMF assistance with its chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn prior to the 2009 elections. Instead, he claims to have requested “technical assistance” for tax matters and noted that his predecessor Kostas Karamanlis had also requested similar assistance, but did nothing to address tax evasion. Mr. Papandreou also repeated his claim that he was not aware of the true amount of the deficit prior to the 2009 elections.

Regarding his departure from PASOK and the formation of his new party, Mr. Papandreou stated that his former party has been associated with the “harshest expression of conservative and right-wing politics” and that the coalition with New Democracy “diluted our basic principles and values”. He justified the creation of his new party since he calls for an open conference went largely ignored.

Later in his interview he accused Prime Minister Antonis Samaras for undermining his efforts for two years “and then went on to serve it” as well as “implementing the hard core of austerity [measures] but not making any changes”. He also accused Mr. Samaras of “gambling” the country’s future for the past few months for electioneering purposes and then left a “hot potato” for the next government.

Mr. Papandreou did not reject the possibility of forming an alliance with SYRIZA after the elections, but clarified that this would only occur under certain conditions, which include an agreement on tackling the debt problem and the implementation of important reforms.