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- How do you see the evolvement of the Euro in the coming years?

- I personally do not mind the Euro to reach the dollar rates from the beginning - to 0.80. Ie € 1 to buy $ 0.80. Now it buys $ 1.20. I see no reason to worry. Of course, the value reduction of the Euro will result in serious problems in Europe. At the same time, there will be many advantages for Europe's competitiveness will be terrible, right? Naturally, we must watch what happens with inflation, the public finances of individual countries. But if the Euro starts to fall, it will not benefit only Germany, it will benefit Bulgaria, and Greece, and Spain. You would say that the value of a currency reflects to a great extent the reliability of the governments that support it and it is not correct the currency value to fall. I would say that we should look things from the other side. European governments should take care to put public finances in order. They should reduce the budget deficit, but not by laying down conditions, but by reducing government spending. They should allow the private economies of the countries to take the issue of economic growth in their hands again. Let the market determines the way of the Euro. Let us not worry about the Euro, let it go where the markets lead it. Let us, as good proprietors, arrange the public finances, reduce the size of the government sector, which is counter-productive and squander. Let the more productive private economy contribute, with its dynamics, for the rapid economic growth of the countries. Countries in Europe have a lot of work to do. They have to arrange a bunch of issues to facilitate investment. If countries do not work hard to make procedures for transactions with the private sector transparent, to develop environmental policies with more confidence, how the investment will be encouraged to come to support development? I have the feeling that many investment would be made here if Greece was now able to settle all the outstanding issues on land use, the impact of investments on the environment, sea, rivers. But no investments are made because there is uncertainty regarding these issues. Therefore, governments can do a lot of work on different level, fiscal and structural. They can do a lot of work to facilitate and encourage investment.

- Will there be consequences of economic crisis on the Greek banking system? A lot was said and written about mergers, strategic investors from abroad. How do you see things in this area?

- I do not exclude this possibility for, as you know, the Greek banks' capitalization has dropped significantly, because their share prices have decreased significantly and this decreased their capitalization. It is not precluded foreign investors to buy a Greek bank or make more investments in the Greek stock exchange, etc. while capitalization is decreasing and the situation in Greece stabilizes to some extent. The drop of these prices creates incentives. I feel, however, that the Greek banks are not very much subject to the impact of the actions of the Greek government. Rather, they are under the management supervision of the Central European Bank. I do not think the banks have any problems given that Mr. Trichet has taken significant steps in recent weeks to facilitate the liquidity of Greek banks. Then it is the Central European Bank assuring and offering us all the liquidity the banks need. Of course, Greek banks have an extremely important problem - that ill-managed portfolios in the sense that they invested most of their available capital in Greek bonds. Someone might say it’s too much. However, now they must make some steps to offset the risks arising from the structure of their portfolios, to neutralize them in a more efficient manner. But I believe that this commitment of the Central European Bank is in force and it will offer all the liquidity needed by Greek banks to cope with this difficult situation. As for the mergers, you know, I believe, in terms of principles and in terms of economic theory, that there should be no major banking institutions. The classic example is that the banking system custodians in the USA were not careful. As result, 3-4 banks became very large. And these 3-4 banks were likely to drag the entire financial and credit system to fail, when they began to encounter problems. And we know that one of the policies developed in America is to divide, fragment the banks into smaller ones. Therefore, I am against the merger, I am “for” the small banks. After the war the banks claimed for economies of scale, of large-scale, in order to become bigger. There are no such economies. It was simply a pretext to make the banking market oligopoly and gain extreme profits. The public interest requires banks are medium in size. On one hand to cover all existing economies of scale and, on the other, not to create problems to the government. Because the larger the banks the less is the relevant force of government.