Papandreou says US backs Greek efforts
10/03/2010
WASHINGTON, United States -- Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said on Tuesday (March 9th) that US President Barack Obama supports his call for strong measures against speculators who may be partly responsible for Greece's economic crisis. He said other leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have also indicated they will not allow the stability of the eurozone to be undermined. The issue of hedge funds will be added to the agenda of the next G20 meeting, Papandreou added.
Other topics discussed at the White House meeting between Obama and Papandreou included Greece's initiative for all Western Balkan countries to join the EU by 2014 and relations between Athens and Ankara.
In related news, European Commission (EC) President Jose Manuel Barroso said Tuesday that the EC will crack down on speculative trading, indicating the commission is working on the idea of a European Monetary Fund (EMF), similar to the IMF, to prevent instability in the eurozone. "The commission has been actively working with euro-area member states to design a mechanism which Greece could use in case of need," Barroso said in Strasbourg.
Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker, however, is cautioning that the proposed EMF is no panacea. "This isn't a solution for Greece, which is a problem that needs to be solved in the short term," he told reporters after a meeting Tuesday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The proposed fund should not create an opportunity for countries not to take budgetary discipline seriously, he added. (Financial Mirror - 10/03/10; BBC, AFP, Deutsche Welle, Bloomberg, Xinhua, Reuters, ANA-MPA, ERT - 09/03/10)