George Papandreou Quotes
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I have always said I will be in politics to serve as best as I can and it will take me wherever it will take me.
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Everyone needs to carry out his own personal revolution.
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We stand united, facing the big responsibility to change our country into a nation of justice, solidarity, humanity and green development.
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The more there is a European solution to a theoretical, but possible, problem in the markets, the less we will have to talk about an I.M.F. solution.
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The structures in Europe in a globalising economy need to be modernised, need to be more integrated, need to be stronger.
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We Greeks want change. We know there are problems in our system. We have great potential but we need to manage our country well. Now that hasn't been done over the last decades. And that is, of course, what we are paying for.
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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.
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Greece has great strengths, but much of this potential has been wasted. That's because of a wider political system, but also because of a lack of an institutional framework.
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If we were the problem, it would be very convenient - kick Greece out, everything's fine. What would happen to Spain, what about Portugal, what about Italy, what about the whole of the euro zone? We need more cooperation and less simplification and prejudice.
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I am proud of being a Greek of the diaspora.
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I have been supporting the European Union, but we are still a work in progress. We have to become more of a United States of Europe. We should talk about electing a president of the E.U., rather than having one selected from the heads of government.
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You can theorise about the options you have but in reality they are very specific.
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We had about 60 regions in Greece and now there are only 13. It'd be like cutting down 50 states to 13 and making it more efficient.
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We have made major reforms in Greece. When I took over after a landslide victory we had a mandate for change and I knew my major focus would be re-organizing the state.
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The fact that we're going through a crisis is an opportunity for Europe to be more coordinated and more integrated. We're actually talking about a European Monetary Fund or euro bonds, about guarantees for countries, about economic governance in the European Union. That shows the strength of Europe.
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Unfortunately, corruption is widespread in government agencies and public enterprises. Our political system promotes nepotism and wasting money. This has undermined our legal system and confidence in the functioning of the state. One of the consequences is that many citizens don't pay their taxes.