Trichet: Greece's efforts will be vindicated

During his speech in Athens on Monday night former European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet expressed his confidence that Greece’s efforts will be vindicated.

He argued that Greece made a tremendous fiscal adjustment, which was inevitable and from a deficit of 15% is currently with a small surplus. "When the data are finalized and verified, I think there will be a discussion of interest rates and duration of funding and the efforts of Greece will be vindicated."

For the slow reaction of the Eurozone in the case of Greece, he said that firstly there no such mechanisms were ready and when parliaments are asked to make decisions, as in the case of Germany and other countries, it takes some time.

For the interest rate differential between the creditor countries and those with which they lend Greece, Trichet said that it is a kind of a hedge spread against some uncertainty payback. He agreed, however, that the negative image of Greece must change.

For unemployment he said that it troubles all developed economies, but more those in which there was a long mismanagement. He noted that unemployment would be lower if all citizens of the country had shouldered the burden of the adjustment.