“Greece’s return to investment grade, last year, marks the return to normalcy and is the beginning of a new effort to increase the well-being of the Greek people” underlined, among others, the governor of the Bank of Greece, Yannis Stournaras, speaking to the staff of the Bank at the event of the cutting of the pie.
“The sacrifices of our fellow citizens during the difficult years of the crisis, together with the unprecedented, in historical times, support of our European partners, as well as the reforms and responsible policies of the governments, took place”, added the governor of the Bank of Greece.
For 2024, he said that it will be a year of hope but also of challenges, such as those entailed by the climate crisis and geopolitical uncertainty.
But all the big challenges, as he characteristically mentioned, require more Europe, not less. “There will be no definitive response to the new major challenges without greater and broader fiscal consolidation, completion of the banking union and the creation of a true capital markets union,” he noted.
This year also marks 25 years since the adoption of the euro (1.1.1999), while a year and a half following June 2000, Greece’s accession to the Eurozone was also decided. Our country even managed to cover the lost ground in the preparatory actions for the new currency and so in January 2002 euro banknotes and coins were put into circulation in Greece at the same time as the other member states of the euro zone.
The commander recalled that he participated in the Simitis government’s negotiations for Greece’s participation in EMU as the president of the Council of Economic Experts of the Ministry of National Economy and Finance and as a member of the Monetary Committee of the European Communities in the period 1994-2000.
He characterized Greece’s accession to the Eurozone, in 2001, as the greatest achievement in the modern economic history of the country as it sealed its European orientation and placed it at the center of European developments.
Accordingly, both from the position of Minister of Finance in the period 2012-2014, as well as from the position of Governor of the Bank of Greece and member of the Board of the ECB immediately following, he was at the center of the management of the biggest financial crisis that the euro faced, of a crisis that, especially for Greece, came to threaten at some point its very participation in the European Union.
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