Galery

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“We will not bankrupt, we will not return to the drachma, no new reforms will be made,” said the representative of the Government George Petalotis in an attempt to calm the society, among which increasingly are blowing rumours that the National Printing House has started to print the new drachma banknotes.

”Lately we have heard various rumours that we will return to the drachma, that we will restructure debt, that we will introduce a hybrid system of monetary exchange - things we hear for the first time,” said George Petalotis. “Of course, we definitely deny all those fantastic scenarios wherever they may come from and however they may reach the Greek society.”

The spokesman of the government suggested that there are certain groups that speculate and benefit from spreading these rumours. Mr. Petalotis confirmed that the assessments of the European Commission concerning the course of the stabilization and development programme have nothing to do with these fictional scenarios for bankruptcy of the Greek State and for returning to the old currency.

Rumours about bankruptcy of the country have intensified during the weekend after the Hungarian Prime Minister stated that the condition of the country's economy is worser than was initially estimated. This opened Pandora's box and various scenarios for Hungary's bankruptcy and the crisis spreading to other countries in the Euro zone such as Austria and Hungary began. The rumours came to Greece and this led to a new stock decline which brought it down to the 1998 level! Yesterday losses were 5.4 %, while the main index fell to 1400 points.

”Foreign banks and Greeks abroad with headquarters in London and working at their own expense seek to attract the deposits of the Greeks and at their earliest convenience they start to spread rumours about “flood”, trying to cause panic,” says a banker for the Vima newspaper.

The depositors panic and call the bank officers to ascertain whether the rumours that Greece will be bankrupt and will return to the drachma are true, but currently there is no withdrawal of the deposited money. But the same bank officer worries that customers will soon begin to draw their deposits as the crisis has become “self-feeding”.