September 1, 2020
Evangelos Venizelos interview with Kathimerini
By Pavlos Papadopoulos
Ex-FM Evangelos Venizelos warns against ‘nervous actions without strategy’
Evangelos Venizelos, a former deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs, reveals previously untold aspects in the history of exploratory talks between Greece and Turkey.
In an interview with Kathimerini on Sunday, Venizelos, a Socialist MP, offers his take on recent developments while expressing his opinion on what should be done with regard to the country’s disputes with Ankara.
Αθήνα, 20 Ιουλίου 2015
Interview d’ Evaggelos Venizelos a accordée a L’ Echo
"Nous avons été traités bien plus durement que Tsipras"
Dans une interview qu’il nous a accordée, l’ancien ministre des Finances grec, Evangelos Venizelos, estime qu’après l’accord intervenu avec les créanciers, la situation politique intérieure en Grèce est devenue intenable. Pour ce membre du Pasok, le parti traditionnel de gauche actuellement dans l’opposition, "les arguments que le Premier ministre Tsipras a utilisés pendant cinq ans ne tiennent plus la route". Le gouvernement de ce dernier, estime-t-il, ne tient sa majorité parlementaire que grâce à l’opposition, qui lui a permis d’approuver cette semaine l’accord intervenu lundi à l’arraché. Et de prévenir: "On ne peut pas espérer réellement appliquer l’accord conclu sur ces bases-là.
Vieux routier de la vie politique grecque, l’ex-vice-président du Gouvernement Papandreou, Evangelos Venizelos a aussi été ministre des Finances du pays entre octobre 2011 et mars 2012 et président du Pasok, le parti socialiste grec, de 2012 à juin 2015. Il est aujourd’hui député et porte-parole parlementaire du parti.
Πέμπτη 25 Ιουνίου 2015
Intervista di Ev. Venizelos al giornalista Ettore Livin quotidiano de la Repubblica
ATENE. “L’accordo con i creditori è l’unica soluzione possibile. Tsipras non ha un mandato per portare il paese fuori dall’euro. Se lo facesse, ci sarebbe un urgente problema di legittimità democratica”. Evangelis Venizelos, quanto a rapporti con la Troika, sa di cosa parla. E’ stato fino a 15 giorni fa presidente del Pasok, partito che ha governato per 40 anni assieme a Nea Demokratia la Grecia fino a portarla nel 2010 sotto l’ombrello di Bce, Ue e Fmi. Come vicepremier e ministro degli esteri del governo Samaras è il vero architetto del memorandum firmato nel 2012 con le istituzioni. Il 25 gennaio il paese - stremato dall’austerity – ha consegnato il potere a Syriza. E i primi cinque mesi di governo, sostiene, hanno avuto un solo effetto: “Far lievitare il costo per salvare il paese”.
Siamo al rush finale dei negoziati, come vede la situazione?
“Tsipras nelle ultime ore sembrava aver preso una decisione difficile ma obbligatoria e di cui sono contento: tenere la Grecia nel solco della Ue evitando di pilotarla verso un default incontrollato o la Grexit. A pagare il ritorno alla dracma sarebbero i più deboli. Ma siamo arrivati qui pagando un costo altissimo. L’economia si è fermata. A gennaio il Pil 2015 era previsto in crescita del 2.5%. Ora siamo a quota zero se non a rischio recessione. I sacrifici imposti ora dai creditori equivalgono al danno fatto da questi 150 giorni di inutile stallo nei negoziati. In confronto a quelli chiesti al nostro governo a fine 2014 con la mail ad Hardouvelis erano un gioco da ragazzi”.
22 May 2014
Interview, The Guardian
How Greece pulled back from the brink of plunging Europe into chaos
Helena Smith in Athens
Greek deputy PM Evangelos Venizelos describes the dramatic 2011 crisis summit that nearly forced his country out of the eurozone – and outlines the damage that was averted
It was a meal where only four of the 14 participants spoke and nobody ate. Seated in front of crystal glasses, the finest porcelain laid out before them, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and her French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, glared at the two men on the opposite side of the table. For both leaders, entrapped in Europe's escalating debt crisis, the emergency dinner – conducted on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Cannes in November 2011 – had suddenly become a defining moment that could make or break the eurozone, the EU's most ambitious project.
Vendredi 4mai 2012 En Grèce,
En Grèce, "il faut bâtir une alliance proeuropéenne"
par Alain Salles
Athènes, Correspondance
Le bureau d'Evangelos Venizélos est en chantier, comme son parti. Il est transformé en studio de télévision, envahi de caméras, pour cause de campagne électorale. L'ancien ministre des finances a pris les rênes du Parti socialiste grec, le Pasok, six semaines avant les élections législatives du 6 mai, cruciales pour le pays, où les sondages prédisent au parti créé par Andréas Papandréou l'un de ses plus mauvais résultats: de 14 % à 19 % des voix, alors qu'il l'avait emporté en 2009 avec 44 %.
Les plans d'austérité répétés ont fait fuir l'électorat. L'ancien ministre s'est fait une raison: "Nous n'avons pas décidé d'appliquer des mesures de rigueur très difficiles par choix idéologique ou politique. C'était une nécessité dans une situation économique extraordinaire. Nous avons dû prendre des décisions qui allaient à l'encontre de nos traditions politiques."
Pourtant, M. Venizélos n'est pas pessimiste. Pour au moins deux raisons. Comme à peu près tous les partis grecs, il place beaucoup d'espoirs dans l'élection de François Hollande en France: "Un changement à la tête de l'Etat français sera le début d'un changement plus profond des rapports de force européens. Aujourd'hui, nous avons une Europe unidimensionnelle, très conservatrice, avec une approche monétariste et néolibérale. Le nouveau président français peut être la clé pour envisager l'avenir économique et monétaire européen sur de nouvelles bases, en faveur de la croissance."
Tuesday 1 May 2012
Greece elections: In an exclusive interview, socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos issues election rallying call
Polls show more than 75% of Greeks remain supporters of the euro despite enduring the steep pay and pension cuts
by Helena Smith
Evangelos Venizelos thinks twice before saying more or less anything. The man who helped pull off the biggest debt restructuring in world history in the continuing attempt to keep a Greek bankruptcy at bay speaks with all the caution of the constitutional law professor he was before he went into politics.
But only days before Greeks go to the polls, the bullish former finance minister is in no doubt that Sunday's election is the "most critical" the ailing country has faced since it returned to democracy in 1974.
"The battle will be decided in the last few days," he said in his first major interview with a foreign newspaper since assuming the helm of the socialist Pasok party in March. "The Greek people will have to give a clear answer as to whether it wants [to follow] a pro-European course, which is safe and responsible, or something else."
If it elects "something else", the country that sparked Europe's escalating debt crisis will not only be turning its back on the "progressive reforms" to modernise its moribund economy, it will be choosing to throw the eurozone into deeper turmoil.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Evangelos Venizelos's President of PASOK interview by Dina Kyriakidou for Reuters
Greek Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos warned voters they were opening the gates of parliament to the "goose-stepping" far-right and appealed for understanding over his party's support for austerity in return for an international bailout.
Venizelos took leadership of the Socialist PASOK party, for decades Greece's largest, earlier this year to try to win back support in next Sunday's election, when voters are set to punish those parties that backed painful austerity measures.
In an interview, the former finance minister warned against the rise of the ultra-nationalist party Golden Dawn, which could win around 5 percent of the vote, comfortably above the 3 percent threshold for entering parliament.
"Golden Dawn is an extreme phenomenon, I believe they are an example of fascism and we radically oppose them. It's an offence to our history and to parliament," he told Reuters, suggesting Greece could be experiencing its version of Germany's "Weimar" years which led to the rise of the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler.
Saturday 07 April 2012
In a SPIEGEL interview, Evangelos Venizelos, the 55-year-old leader of Greece's PASOK party, the largest in parliament, defends his country against critics' views that it is incapable of reform and explains why he thinks the bailout is a good investment for German taxpayers.
by Sven Böll and Julia Amalia Heyer
SPIEGEL: Mr. Venizelos, last year, at the time you left the Greek Defense Ministry to go to the Finance Ministry, you said: "Now I am entering the real war." Is this war now over?
Venizelos: No, the second rescue package for Greece was adopted and the debt was successfully restructured. This was not just the result of my personal efforts, but an achievement of all my colleagues in the euro zone and the representatives of the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The situation is now more secure, but the game is far from over. A long and difficult path lies ahead of us.
SPIEGEL: You have been active in politics for decades and you were just elected as the leader of the socialist PASOK party. Now you want to become the prime minister who represents the restart of Greece. Is this correct?
Venizelos: I've only been in the Greek parliament for 18 years. The candidate for the conservative New Democracy party, my rival Antonis Samaras, has been a member of parliament since the late 1970s.
Thurday 15 March 2012
CNBC: Now that we’ve got the PSI out of the way, which is basically a big mountain you had to climb, how confident are you that the whole process will be concluded now with the few (bondholders) that are not on board yet?
Venizelos: First of all, until now, we have a very high participation. Until now we have a participation of the level of 95.7%. We are very close to the so-called “universal participation” and according to the fundamental and initial decision of the Euro Summit, our target was this universal participation. Now, after the extension of our offer until the 23rd of March, I am sure that we are in a position to absolutely achieve this target of universal participation, because the market is always very clever, very practical, very realistic and the market knows very well that this offer is unique; it is a very good and profitable offer and every bondholder can make the right option to take this offer with a sweetener equivalent, with a co-financing scheme, with a GDP warrant and also with new bonds under English law. This is a unique and absolutely constructive proposal not only from the part of Greece but also from the part of the so-called “official sector”.
CNBC: You are a lot more optimistic about the wisdom of the market than I am but, that set aside, were you disappointed at all that a credit event was called?
Monday 12 March 2012
By: Reported by Silvia Wadhwa, Written by Catherine Boyle
Greece has been tossed on the turbulent sea of global markets for almost two years now – but the bond swap deal secured on Friday should reassure markets about the country’s future, Greek Finance Minister and possible future prime minister Evangelos Venizelos told CNBC.
“Now we have a sustainable debt for a sustainable country,” he said. “And now we can persuade the market because we have a new, very important and very concrete argument: the sustainability of the public debt after the PSI (the private sector investor deal).”
“We have a very clear political declaration and position from the part of our institutional partners. We have a very clear statement from the part of the Eurogroup, but also of the Euro Summit. We have the support of the so-called “Official Sector” until the return of Greece in the market,” he added.
Greece’s struggle under the weight of a 160-percent plus debt-to-GDP ratio and 20 percent unemployment has been one of the biggest factors affecting global markets for close to a year. Investors feared that if the Mediterranean country defaulted on its debt repayments, the end result could be the demise of the single currency itself.
