“The European venture is alive. It proceeds unevenly, but it does proceed,” Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said on Wednesday while addressing the European Parliament in a review of the Greek EU presidency that ended in June.

He estimated that there was rapid progress in Europe from one generation to another and that the EU growth rate has accelerated.

Samaras underlined that efforts have been made to deal with the institutional weaknesses of the euro.

The prime minister congratulated Martin Schulz on his reelection as president of the European Parliament and welcomed the proposal by the European Council to appoint Jean-Claude Juncker as chairman of the new European Commission.

In his rejoinder, Samaras referred to the need for law and order to protect democracy and responded to criticism from far-right MEPs over the prosecution of members of Greece’s ultra-right Golden Dawn, saying he was “not obliged to answer to extremists and demagogues, nor to apologise to those that deny everything.” The leader of Golden Dawn was being prosecuted by justice, not the government, for his actions and not his beliefs, he added.

Referring to Greece’s efforts to exit the crisis, Samaras said that Europe had lacked the tools when the crisis erupted back in 2010.
“Now we are better prepared to deal with a new crisis, whenever and however this occurs,” he added.

On his own efforts, the Greek premier said that his focus two years ago was to save the country: “We changed whatever we could change, achieved the greatest fiscal adjustment in the smallest space of time and emerged much earlier than others expected onto the international markets, and ended a six-year period of recession.”

“Yes, we made it due to the determination of the Greek government and the sacrifices of the Greek people,” the Greek premier concluded.