Throwing Greece out of the eurozone is no solution: Gerrit Zalm

Throwing Greece out of the eurozone would be no solution to the current European debt crisis, ABN Amro bank chief and former finance minister Gerrit Zalm told a television current affairs show on Sunday.


Zalm was responding to calls by VVD stalwart and former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, who told another show the EU should continue supporting Greece on the condition it leaves the euro.
Zalm said if this strategy was adopted, Italy would be the next to go, and then ‘Ireland and Portugal and in the end just the Netherlands and Germany would be left’.
Greece has taken ‘drastic’ steps to reform its economy, Zalm said. The country’s top priority now must be to reform the tax office and eradicate the black economy.
Zalm also told the show he is opposed to the idea of an extra tax on the banking sector and the introduction of European bonds. The Netherlands should not be a part of that without cast iron guarantees, the VVD supporter said.

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