Former European Commission chief Jacques Delors on Sunday blasted the reluctance of eurozone countries like Germany to boost the size of the Greek bailout and create a system of eurobonds to facilitate lending.
"It is scandalous. You cannot be a member of the euro co-operation and at the same time say no to elementary demands for solidarity with other members within the framework of existing agreements," the prominent European federalist said in an interview with Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's daily of reference.
"We have to save Greece together. What has been done so far is too little, too late," he added. Ahead of a European Union summit Monday aimed at putting the finishing touches on a pact to reinforce fiscal discipline, there have been mounting calls to increase the size of a planned second Greek bailout.
But a number of eurozone governments, including in Germany and Finland, have been publicly wary of throwing more taxpayer money at Athens. Delors, who was commission chief between 1985-95 and a key player in creating the framework for the euro's 1999 launch, said it was "out of the question" to push Greece out of the eurozone and insisted the solution was for "Greece to privatise more of its economy."
"The euro countries also must together introduce common eurobonds, ... not to finance the current debt but to create greater efficiency and connectivity in the financial and monetary system," the 86-year-old Frenchman said. The creation of such a "eurobond," which would pool the debt of the entire monetary bloc in a bid to reassure markets and facilitate lending, has long been a contentious issue among top policymakers, with the European Commission and France being in favour of such an instrument but Germany strictly opposed for now.
"It is a mistake of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to refuse to go along with such bonds," Delors said. Delors also criticised a growing concentration of EU power with its biggest members.
"Instead of deepening the co-operation so that the EU Commission takes the initiative to find solutions that are good for all EU countries, there has for the past decade been a development within the EU where the large countries (Germany and France) have the power," he lamented. "We should instead return to the basic idea behind the EU's success ... (by) including all member countries in decisions," he added.