Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-11-04

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] DIMAR leader asks President Papoulias to call political leaders' meeting on debt restructuring

[02] Jean Claude Juncker defended Greece's accession to the eurozone

[01] DIMAR leader asks President Papoulias to call political leaders' meeting on debt restructuring

Kouvelis noted that the political contradictions and confrontations between the political parties are acceptable in the context of the democratic operation, however, they should be left aside and a common political ground on the debt negotiations should be sought, otherwise results will be adverse for the society.

On his part, Papoulias said he was glad to hear about understanding despite the differences between the political parties, noting however, that this is necessary for national issues too. "This is my position, this is what I told prime minister (Antonis Samaras) and (SYRIZA leader Alexis) Tsipras as well, Papoulias noted.

[02] Jean Claude Juncker defended Greece's accession to the eurozone

According to Deutche Welle's Greek service, Juncker said before an audience of 100 journalists that attended the book's presentation: "We did not allow Greece to be among the first group of countries that would adopt the euro, because it was not ready for that. However, later Greeks made significant efforts".

He acknowledged, however, that the Europeans "were misled by a wrong statistics presentation of the data" noting that this mistake would not be repeated. He also referred to the Greek people's achievements in the last four years and reminded that we should not seek scapegoats for "the Greek politicians' wrongdoings in the past decades". Moreover, Juncker expressed his disappointment over the revival of the resentment clichés in Greece and in Germany.

Juncker underlined that the "introduction of the euro is a policy of peace" adding that a currency war between France and Germany would burst out during the crisis if there was no common currency. The common currency "made the European integration non reversible...it protects Europe...without it things would be bad for us".

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