“Try to tell a Greek who is struggling to survive that Greece now has a primary surplus, which for us in the Eurogroup is an important indicator. But what does this mean to a citizen in Greece?” the President of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem asked himself and noted that after the last European elections “Europe is no longer something that is not questioned,”.

“Try to tell a Spanish who has lost his job that a small reduction in unemployment rate has been recorded in his country or an Irish, whose house lost a quarter of its value, that there is a small rise in property prices,” Mr Dijsselbloem said speaking at a conference on Europe which was held by “Hertie School of Governance” in Berlin and stressed that there is an improvement of economic data but it is clear that there are yet a lot of things to be done “in order to create new jobs and strong growth, on a sustainable basis this time,”.

Commenting on the outcome of elections, the President of the Eurogroup said that according to his own analysis, the outcome of the elections means that we must follow the commitments relating to the monetary union.

“On some cases I have been in favour of budget target flexibility, but only for countries that have implemented the required reforms. Now we must deal together both fiscal challenge and the challenge of reforms and we need to ensure financial stability,” he said.