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As there were objections during the previous press conference why Greek translation wasn’t provided, this time the organizers of the European Commission had taken care of this. In this way the Greek colleagues were able to express themselves more freely and tried to provoke the three experts by directly accusing them that their original program for salaries cuts and tax increases had failed and they turned to privatization to throw dust to people’s eyes for the failure.

Poul Thomsen said that when they came for the first time, Greece had 15.5% budget deficit and no access to international financial markets. The country would collapse without them and the government would be forced to reduce the budget deficit to zero percent overnight. He also said that this was equal to social collapse. He explained further with the peace of a missionary that they intervened at this point and with the loan of 110 billion euros the Greek government could take a breath. Servaas Deroose was even more specific by saying that when the program started urgent measures had been needed to stabilize the economy. The big problem in Greece was the public sector and the public sector salaries had been its heavy burden. So, they had started from there. Both experts were adamant that there won’t be further  salaries cuts and tax increases.