Alexis Tsipras was dubbed unsuitable to become prime minister of Greece by Jean – Claude Juncker, who also noted that if the head of SYRIZA got elected, “it would be a major danger for Greece.”
In his interview with the financial website euro2day.gr, the candidate of the European People ‘s Party for President of the European Commission said that in such a case, he would be willing to cooperate with Mr.Tsipras, but he doesn’t think that Mr. Tsipras would want to cooperate with him.
“This would be a major danger for the country”, he explained, expressing the view that the president of SYRIZA does not sufficiently understand what the problems are in Greece and what the problems are in Europe regarding Greece.
“I would like him to take major responsibilities, but I do not think that he would be the right man for Prime Minister at this very dramatic moment for Greece” he added.
Apart from Mr.Tsipras, Mr Juncker talked about other important issues, such as the issue of Cannes and the background of the Greek bailout.
Referring to reports in the Financial Times for that crucial meeting where Mr Papandreou had raised the issue of the referendum, Jean -Claude Juncker said he knew long ago that the former prime minister wanted to put all these questions to a referendum.
However, he said that they were all surprised when he suddenly brought up the referendum issue again, after they have reached an agreement with Greece on a common line to follow.
“He didn’t tell us that during the dramatic meeting we had for Greece in Brussels. We were really surprised that he came back to this idea he had developed months ago, but not repeated since. We asked him to put one simple question to the Greeks: Do you want to be a member of the eurozone, yes or no? If the answer is yes, then you have to implement the program we have agreed upon together. After this meeting, Greece rejected the idea of organizing a referendum,” he said.

However, when asked about whether Mr Papandreou was threatened that Greece would be pushed out of the euro if he didn’t agree to withdraw the referendum, Mr Juncker said he was strongly against the perspective of putting Greece outside the eurozone because he always believed that the Greek people have dignity and do not merit this kind of treatment and that if Greece had exited the eurozone there would have a domino effect to other European economies.

“I didn’t personally threaten Greece or the Prime Minister to push the country out of the Eurozone, but if Greece had voted “no” in the referendum, this would have been the result,”said former Prime Minister of Luxembourg and former head of the Eurogroup, noting that he did “everything possible to prevent Greece from putting these questions to a referendum.”

Mr Juncker went on to say that Greece was not threatened by anyone in the room during the critical summit.

However, he said that it was explained to Mr. Papandreou and Mr. Venizelos that the result of a wrong question and a wrong answer in the referendum would lead to the exit from the Eurozone.

“I was against the exit and tried to explain to Mr. Papandreou and to his finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, that they shouldn’t put these questions to a referendum,” he said.

Referring to his relations with Antonis Samaras, Mr Juncker said that they were somewhat difficult when he was in the opposition because he constantly asked him to be as supportive as he could be to the government.

“When he took office he was exemplary in addressing the problems he was facing in Greece and I am happy that he and New Democracy are supporting my candidacy for President of the European Commission,” he said.

“The result is there, Greece is doing well, as it has returned to the markets on the conditions which a few years ago seemed unreachable. He managed to prove that Greece was able to achieve primary surpluses. Mr. Samaras is a great Greek and a great European”, Mr Juncker added.

Source: euro2day.gr