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Commission says 'No' vote widens gap between Greece and EU

401 views · Published 6 July 2015 · 3:25 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: Euractiv · 2015 · News & Politics

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“We respect the democratic choice of the Greek people. The no result unfortunately widens the gap between Greece and other Euro zone countries. There is no easy way out of this crisis,” said EU Commissioner for the Euro and Social Dialogue Valdis Dombrovskis on Monday.

Dombrovskis comments came after Greece voted “No” in Sunday's referendum, rejecting the conditions attached to an EU bailout deal. 

Dombrovskis said that the EU executive “is ready to continue its work with Greece,” but it cannot cannot negotiate a new programme for Greece “without the mandate from the Eurogroup.”

“Eurozone countries are ready to look into the Greek debt, the conditionality of the Greek debt and the debt servicing costs but now it is once again for Eurogroup to decide on a new mandate for the Commission and whether and in which form would also include the debt issue,” he added. 

The Commission's vice-president also emphasised that “the stability of the Euro area is not in question.”  

“The Euro area authorities stand ready to do whatever is necessary to ensure financial stability of the euro area. We have everything we need to manage this situation. We have a banking union to ensure the stability of the financial sector. We have a European Financial Stability mechanism with firepower of €500 billion to help the most vulnerable economies. We have a strong fiscal economic governance. The European Central Bank is making full use of its tools to ensure stability and the European Court of Justice has recently confirmed the outright monetary transactions,” Dombrovskis said. 

European Council President Donald Tusk has called an extraordinary EU summit on Tuesday to discuss the issue.

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