George Papandreou

It is important that the Greek people make decisions on important developments. ”

How can a parliamentarian or a leader in a country say, on the one hand, that we're going to support Greece but at the same time say that Greeks are lazy? ”

There are certain moments in the history of a nation when the choices made define the decades to come. ”

Greece has given Europe the opportunity to fix a defect in the euro zone, that is the fact that we did not have a fiscal union. Now steps have been taken to begin that process. And there is more solidarity from nation to nation, and that is a good thing. That has been Greece's gift to Europe. ”

If we were going to default, we would have decided that many months ago. It would be wrong for the Greek economy, it would be wrong for the European economy, it would make things worse in the end. That's why we're taking the pain and making these structural reforms, and we're on target. ”

Every leader wants to put his or her imprint on the work that they do, and grow up in specific eras. ”

If you put all the European countries together, we are the biggest economy in the world. ”

The structures in Europe in a globalising economy need to be modernised, need to be more integrated, need to be stronger. ”

Previous governments, particularly the one before I took over, mismanaged the economy quite badly. ”

The Marshall Plan was after destruction, and the U.S. came to our help and obviously this was very, very important for the future of Europe. I think now we have all the capabilities of doing it on our own and, in a sense, we have to. ”