Papandreou rounds on European partners

Financial Times
July 12, 2011

Greece’s prime minister has rounded on the country’s European partners, claiming that “indecisiveness and errors” has fuelled the eurozone’s deepening debt crisis.

“There is a greater need to avoid mistakes of the past. Crunch time has arrived,” George Papandreou said in a letter to Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg’s prime minister and chairman of the eurogroup of finance ministers.

Mr Papandreou accused Greece’s partners of “taking decisions that in the end prove too little, too late to convince markets”. He complained that eurozone states were “making compromises ... that substitute tactical politics for sound management of the crisis”, and “allowing a cacophony of voices to substitute for a shared agenda”.

The letter was made public on Tuesday as yields on Greek, Italian and Spanish bonds soared to record highs following demands by a consortium of European banks that the European Union should commit to a buy-back of Greek debt.

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