>>George Papandreou: Well, dear friends, it
is truly an honor to be here with you and
to share my thoughts on these challenging
moments.
And Greece has been squarely in the eye of
the storm for the last three years.
Only just yesterday, the G8 again was pondering
over the Greek crisis.
And I found myself at the helm, as was stated,
guiding my country through uncharted waters
at high seas and with no GPS system.
To be honest, I did have three map readers.
It was the ECB, the European Commission, and
the IMF.
But they read, and they read, conventional
maps with analog technology, certainly no
Google Earth, to make accurate assessments.
So, yes, never in recent history did I -- did
a developed economy face default while at
the same time being constrained within a monetary
union with no effective national central bank,
with a constrained European Central Bank,
with no firewall, no support mechanism, no
capability to devalue its currency, and everyone
in the world pontificating and analyzing what
Greece should do and what it's not doing.
That's why I called this journey an odyssey,
keeping in good tradition with our Homeric
heritage.
But before I describe experiences from the
eye of the storm, let me take you and Greece
out of the storm and tell you what Greece
could be like.
You know Greece, and in many ways, Greece
is very much a common heritage of all.
Greece is a country with unimaginable and
unrealized potential, a tourist industry that
has potential in so many innovative products,
from eco to cultural to religious to sport
to wellness or health tourism.
Renewable energy from our wind, sun, geothermal
resources, is bountiful.
There's a new project, Project Helios, an
unprecedented project for Europe, to export
green energy from Greece, mainly to Germany,
to produce revenues to reduce our public debt.
Our agriculture can become high-quality based
on our traditions of the so-called Mediterranean
or Cretan diet.
We have the biggest aqua culture in Europe
and the biggest shipping fleet in the world.
At the same time, the ports of Piraeus and
Thessaloniki are becoming hubs between China
and India, the gulf states for the European
market, while our program of privatization
and public asset development bodies bodes
well for the foreign direct investment and
sustainable competitive growth.
We also have a younger generation, well-educated,
many abroad, very innovative, motivated, and
many Greeks have a diaspora, a potential engine
of growth in our country.
Greek companies such as Veltri (phonetic)
and Upstream (phonetic) have emerged as some
of the biggest names in the ultra-competitive
mobile market, and there are hundreds of incredible
startups in Greece ready to join them.
And our culture, ancient to modern, can be
archived and uploaded -- something we have
started with Google -- to contribute to a
global commonwealth of knowledge and innovation,
an amazing resource for creative and cultural
enterprises, a resource for humanity.
So what went wrong?
Why this uncertainty and this incessant sense
of a sense of doom?
Well, let me describe three myths around this
problem.
First is the debt myth.
Yes, debt is there but it's just the tip of
the iceberg.
A symptom rather than the underlying cause.
The real problem was a problem of governance,
lack of monitoring, lack of transparency,
bad allocation of funds rather than the lack
of funds, waste, unequal distribution of money
rather than profligate spending by all, clientism
rather than meritocracy, graft rather than
the rule of law, unequal privileges rather
than a sense of justice for all.
Yes, a badly managed country with lost competitiveness,
resources, and a sense of justice.
That is what was needed to change, and that
was the platform I was elected on, and I would
name this a democratic challenge, a democratic
governance challenge.
And we are changing.
Much so in governance by bringing transparency
and online governance everywhere.
And yes, your technologies are helping us,
for example, in fighting tax evasion.
Despite media hype that Greece is not doing
its part, a recent report by the OECD assessed
reforms amongst members over the past three
years and we are not number two, but number
one, in reforming our country.
This change is often hidden by the sacrifices
and the pain of austerity we're going through.
But that takes me to a second myth.
Many believed, and still do so, that this
was and is a Greek problem.
Well, Niall, you were very clear on this.
Some are very prejudicial.
They believed Greeks were or are the problem.
That would be very convenient.
This led to simplistic solutions: You put
your house in order.
You do the homework.
A slap on the hand, you lazy Greeks.
All will be well.
Kick the can down the road.
By the way, according, again, to official
OECD statistics, Greeks happen to be the hardest
working amongst the OECD countries, believe
it or not.
Not only simplistic, but dangerous for our
European principals.
From the very beginning, I said yes, we Greeks
will live up to our responsibilities.
However, I also said there is a deeper problem.
It is a European problem and we need to have
European solutions.
So I fought for Europe to respond, and it
did, yes, with solidarity towards Greece and
others with new institutions, with the biggest
bailout program in mankind's history, with
the biggest haircut of a debt in history.
But the storm doesn't seem to leave us alone.
Markets, rather than being calm, continue
to be skeptical, aggressive, speculative.
Why?
Greece's national economy is half the size
of the economy of London.
Can we be held responsible for the stability
of the global economy?
Well, I think there is a sign that is quite
apparent.
Greece is a precedent, a paradigm for both
the inherent weaknesses of the European construction,
moving from a union to a federation but somewhere
in the middle right now, but also the wider
problems of the developed world as it faces
the merging markets.
So let me take you back to the eye of the
storm.
The Greek crisis revealed some of the missing
bricks in the architecture of our common currency.
Don't forget, Zeus and Europa gave birth to
King Minos, and he of course was the one who
created the labyrinth.
So we do have a labyrinthal architecture of
having a common currency without at the same
time having a common treasury and many other
lacking of important structures.
Lack of harmonization, basic policies such
as taxation, labor laws, pension systems,
health, unemployment benefits.
This goes way beyond the myth that fiscal
austerity will solve all, and austerity will
not solve the problem Europe and the developed
world is facing today, the major competitiveness
problem with emerging markets.
Economic activity and capital is fleeing to
Asia, Latin America, Africa, parts of the
world with obvious advantages: lower wages,
abundant cheap labor, lack of collective bargaining
sometimes, lack of even meager social welfare
systems, and the capability to easily denigrate
the environment.
All these factors, combined with state support,
in some cases, have given a strong comparative
advantage to these regions, brought much wealth
to these societies albeit not always distributed
in a just way, but have also undermined the
social compact that we had in western societies.
So what is our dilemma in the developed world?
Can we compete on these terms?
Can we, in fact, create sustainable economies
on these terms?
Can our democratic institutions survive on
these terms?
And I believe not.
But I also believe that even the emerging
economies sooner or later cannot continue
sustainable growth on these terms.
Our planet cannot provide, cannot sustain,
this model of growth.
Maybe technology will help in solving these
problems, but this is also a political crisis,
a crisis of democracy.
Capital is fleeing from the developed world
not only to emerging markets but also to tax
havens, to financial rather than the real
economy, robbing nations of their tax revenues,
creating deep inequalities in our societies,
and this has been one of the major problems
in Greece.
Power and wealth is being amassed beyond national
borders.
And with this concentration of wealth, our
democratic institutions are often captured
by special interests which then further their
privileges.
Democracy was an ancient innovation to, amongst
other things, control the hubris of those
who concentrated too much power in their hands.
And the Occupy movement realizes this very
much so.
The Occupy Democracy movement.
Many economists and Nobel laureates have pointed
to this question and linked it to the issue
of inequality, whether it's Krugman, Stiglitz,
Galbraith, Jeffrey Sachs, or Bob Rice, inequality
is one of the main causes of this global crisis.
At a time, as a matter of fact, when humanity
has such amazing potential, our democracies
cannot seem capable to deal with the fact
that they can only make decisions within national
borders in a global economy.
Not only a country like Greece, not only Europe,
but the world, the G20.
You know we have the technological capacity.
It's there.
I was speaking to Peter Diamandis yesterday
about the abundance of capacity we have.
We can make poverty history.
We can deal with illiteracy, climate change,
migration, pandemics, unemployment, financial
crisis.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.
But we aren't.
If we don't democratize our potential, whether
it is wealth, knowledge, or technology, to
create societies suited for the human dimension,
this would be hubris.
Blasphemy to the gods, as Aristotle would
have us say.
And doing so, companies such as yours, Google,
could have a major contribution in creating
a more participatory democracy.
Crowdsourcing, using the commonwealth of knowledge,
and much more.
Otherwise, the backlash towards globalization
will be more populism, racism, even neo-Fascism
in our societies.
If we do not democratize and humanize globalization,
people will see our democratic institutions
as weak, not living up to expectations or
their potential.
And this is one of the many reasons why I
thought a referendum would be necessary in
Greece, so that the Greek people owned the
program one way or another.
Owned their own fate.
So as I have traveled on this odyssey, I look
beyond and see a major challenge to our democracies
in this globalizing world.
This is where Europe steps in.
Why is Europe today so important?
It seems weak, teetering, complex, slow to
react, a labyrinth.
Should we press "delete"?
My view is we need more Europe, rather than
less.
In this short intervention, I only analyze
the many proposals not only I but others have
laid down just before me -- Professor Ferguson
-- for more Europe and a more democratic Europe,
a Europe that has potential for transparent
banking systems, democratic oversight of rating
agencies, clamping down on tax havens, greater
transparency in the markets such as the CDS
market, for a central bank more interventionist,
more like the U.S. Fed, that is also tasked
with fighting unemployment, for green growth
and a competitive pact.
Our model of sustainable and competitive growth
should be based on quality, not inequality.
For euro bonds, a financial transaction tax,
resources both to stabilize the debt challenge
and to leverage funds for investment in green
growth and jobs, investing in our human capacity
-- brains, education, research, innovation
-- but also in the grids, whether they be
broadband, green transportation, or energy
grids from north to south, east to west, but
linking the Mediterranean, Africa, the Middle
East, and Russia.
So I believe the austerity hysteria is a dead
end.
We need to complement our national policies
on fiscal consolidation with European growth
projects.
And there is some light from the G8 and of
course from the political change in France.
Finally, Europe can draw up a new social pact
to deal with the high unemployment of the
European Union.
The most popular program in Europe is called
Erasmus.
It allows students to go from one European
country to another to study.
Let us invest and extend this to the unemployed
workers and professionals of Europe.
Let me conclude with a few thoughts on the
importance of Europe.
You are innovators, but yes, we politicians
are and need to be innovators in our institutions.
And from ancient times, whether it was the
Olympic Games whose main purpose was to promote
an Olympic truce -- good luck to London -- or
the idea of democracy to create more free
and just equal societies, we have innovated.
And Europe is an innovation.
It grew out of the horror of World War II
and the Holocaust.
It's a peace project, a democratic project,
a social and security project based on democracy,
peaceful resolution of conflict, tolerance,
human rights, a respect for diversity.
Today, it is challenged to retain this memory
but extend it to our globalized world, a project
where we in different cultures, different
languages, different countries, have given
up much of our sovereignty to create a stronger
union to deal with the challenges of the world,
whether it's climate change or a financial
crisis, pooling our capacities.
That is the importance of Europe in a globalized
society.
For our region, for many other regions.
It's important now that we're having the Arab
Spring in the Mediterranean, in northern Africa.
It's important as a model to see that we can
solve our problems not through violence but
through dialogue, through working together.
It's important for Europe, central and eastern
Europe, southeastern Europe.
It's important to create a model that can
be both democratic, socially just, and sustainably
growing to a green economy.
In this recent crisis, we may have not done
so well, but I believe as Niall Ferguson has
suggested, we either will move forward to
more Europe or we will see, sooner or later,
the disintegration of this very important
construction and innovation.
Despite our difficult odyssey in this Greek
and European crisis, I remain optimistic.
We will reach our Ithaca.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
