Even Papakonstantinou is questioning the memorandum!

Apart from the rating agencies, the effectiveness of the support mechanisms and the sacrifices by Greek citizens are also challenged by our Finance minister, the man in charge of such matters

In a speech before the European socialists, Papakonstantinou appeared revealing about his own thoughts and anxieties, a year after signing the memorandum. He described how the financial mechanism was established with the help of the IMF and the EU. "This was a very risky endeavor", he said and referred to the conditions and measures that accompanied it: "We wanted to believe that we were using the right ingredients - not flammable materials, but other ones that could extinguish the fire".

With disarming honesty, he wondered aloud: "The question is, if we actually managed to do it. I do not know".

As he said, "What we achieved was the containment of a highly explosive situation. Greece bought time (...) to channel changes and Europe acquired time to start thinking about how it could deal with the present problem in a milder way".

And on a personal level - as a socialist who implemented the tough austerity measures - he said: "If I went back, I could never have imagined that I would be the Finance minister who would cut wages by 15%, pensions by 10%, increase VAT by 4% and excise tax by 30%, and all this within six months... Of course, the question I ask myself is: So does all this make me any less of a Socialist? And I wonder too, whether others think of me as such".

Moving even further, he actually criticized the rough measures imposed by Germany on Greece: "Maybe I'm not the best man to judge the new financial framework and the new rules of economic governance, because you know that our past is not what will enable us to become objective critics. However, I think we could have had a more flexible framework that would have provided the same results".

Nevertheless, he reassured the worried rating agencies and investors – albeit not in the most categorical manner – that Greece will not proceed to a debt restructuring.