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The Euro Group President and Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker does not exclude Greece to be forced to take further steps to its financial stabilization. After his meeting with the Prime Minister of Greece George Papandreou he said that he was delighted by the efforts of the Greek government and Greek Parliament to reform the economy. He stated also that all had joined for a program that had certain objectives. And if they were not completed new measures would be required. Half an hour before the arrival of the high-standing European guest the Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou entered the Prime Minister's office by the back door. Earlier in the day the Minister had a meeting with the representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and European Central Bank. The Foreign Minister Dimitris Droutsas attended the meeting with the President of Euro Group too.

Jean-Claude Juncker emphasized that the euro was not in crisis, nor in danger. Only some euro zone countries, among which Greece, were in debt crisis. The Euro Group President stated that Greece had difficulties with public finances and should be applauded for its efforts to deal with them. He said that it would survive and it wouldn’t be necessary to leave the euro zone and also that there was no need for a country to leave the euro zone as had been proposed recently. He supported the rescheduling of the payments of financial support of 110 billion euros which Greece received from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

George Papandreou and Jean-Claude Juncker also discussed the euro zone stability and competitiveness measures the final form of which is expected to be presented by France and Germany in the coming weeks. The Prime Ministers of the two countries explained at a joint press conference that Greece and Luxembourg generally supported the conclusion of such a contract. They said also that there were proposals they agreed with and others that they did not approve and they should be discussed. Yet this plan was not in its final form, so they could not explicitly state whether they would approve it or not.

Besides the hot economic issues, the two politicians also discussed other topics of the day - the situation in Egypt, on the Balkans, the dispute over Macedonia's name. Jean-Claude Juncker admitted that Greece was the expert on the Balkan issues and that the analysis of the Greek Prime Minister was very valuable to him. He came to Athens to be awarded the title Honorary Lecturer in Law at the University of Athens.