Increased Eurozone tax burden not Greece's fault
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The European countries are going to face an increased tax burden due to the financial crisis, but that is not Greece's fault, the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said in an interview in Athens Friday.
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Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou |
But "we will be paying back these loans with a high interest rate, so these countries are going to gain money from us, if all goes well, and we hope all goes well," said Papandreou.
When asked about the future of Europe, Papandreou said, "What we've seen in this crisis is that we need more Europe, not less. I also see that the more we'e coordinated, the more we work together to solve these problems, the quicker we can deal with crises."
He also admitted that his country has the problem of a large shadow economy, or underground economy like tax evasion, corruption. A lot of money has been wasted through huge bureaucracy, a clientelistic system, and patronage.
"My government has now brought in laws such as total transparency in all signatures in the public sector, putting more and more tax reform resources and contracts online," said he. "This will make things much more transparent, and I believe this will help bring the shadow economy out into the open."
With regard to the pains Greeks are suffering from due to the ongoing debt crisis, he believed that the wide majority of Greek people have realized that they needed to make changes that were long overdue in their country -- to make governance much more responsible, and the running of the country much more transparent.
"We all have to live up to our own personal responsibilities to this country," said the Prime Minister.
He also denied the report that Greek workers are lazy, retorting that Greece has the highest number of working hours in Europe.
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