A SENIOR member of the European Commission has suggested the euro zone could survive the departure of Greece.
The remarks by Dutch commissioner Neelie Kroes, one of eight vice-presidents of the EU’s 27-member executive branch, are at odds with the commission’s policy of keeping the 17-country currency system intact.
“What is a man overboard? It’s being said that if you allow one country to exit or ask it to exit, then the whole structure collapses. But that just isn’t true,” she told the Dutch paper De Volkskrant.
The commissioner’s remarks come in the wake of an interview in which her Greek counterpart, Maria Damanaki, said contingency plans for Greece to leave the euro if it defaults are being examined.
Ms Kroes is one of the most outspoken members of the Commmision. She holds the digital agenda portfolio and previously ran the commission’s powerful competition branch.
Her remarks are perceived to reflect exasperation in Brussels with the Greek authorities but a commission spokesman insisted there was no change in its policy.
“The commission line is very clear on this file. We want Greece to remain a member of the euro area and this is also the position of the euro group finance minister\s. Vice-president Kroes has not asked for Greece to leave the euro area. Neither has she said that it could be a likely scenario.”
Although Ms Kroes said she was not advocating a Greek exit, she said such an event would not hurt the euro zone very much.
Greece was doing a “bad job” compared to Italy, Spain and Ireland, she said. It was, therefore, no surprise that EU authorities had arrived at the point where they did not want to transfer any more money to Athens.
The commission’s spokesman said there no divergence between Ms Kroes and the commission.
“We consider that the interview given by Mrs Kroes is not in contradiction with the commission line. You might have a different reading, which we fully respect, but we don’t see the contradiction,” he said. “We are very well aware that there are some risk scenarios flying around at the moment where there are some sensitive discussions in Athens. The commission’s role is not to fuel these speculative scenarios.”
