What must be said

In the midst of the eurozone crisis, we're fortunate to have politicians who can tell us how things stand, ironises the Süddeutsche Zeitung, with this list of choice quotes.

Published on 26 July 2012 at 14:29
Greece

“Russia is not Greece.” (Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister, March 2010).

“France is not Greece.” (Christian Lagarde, director of the International Monetary Fund, May 2010).

“Portugal is not Greece, and Spain is not Greece.” (Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, May 2010).

“Spain is not Greece. But Greece is where it is thanks to a policy like Zapatero’s policy in Spain.” Mariano Rajoy, leader of the Spanish opposition, May 2010).

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“Hungary is not in the same situation as Greece.” (Olli Rehn, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, June 2010).

“Hungary is quite obviously not Greece.” (Gyorgy Matolcsy, Hungarian Finance Minister, June 2010).

“Spain is neither Ireland nor Portugal.” (Elena Salgado, Spanish Minister of Finance, November 2010).

“Ireland is neither Spain nor Portugal.” (Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary-General, November 2010).

“Ireland is not Greece.” (Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, November 2010).

“Greece is not Ireland.” (Giorgos Papakonstantinou, Greek Minister of Finance, November 2010).

“Ireland is not in Greek territory.” (Brian Lenihan, Irish Minister of Finance, November 2010).

“Ireland is not Greece.” (Michael Noonan, Irish Minister of Finance, June 2011).

“France is not Greece and it’s not Italy either.” (Barry Eichengreen, American economist, August 2011).

“Italy is not Greece.” (Rainer Bruederle, Germany's FDP parliamentary party leader, August 2011).

“Italy is not Greece.” (Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister, October 2011).

“Austria is not Greece.” (Karlheinz Kopf, parliamentary faction leader of Austria’s People's Party, November 2011).

“Italy is not Greece.” (Christian Lindner, FDP general secretary, November 2011).

“Portugal is not Greece, and it will not turn into Greece.” (Antonio Saraiva, head of the Confederation of Portuguese Industry, February 2012).

“Spain is not Greece.” (Richard Youngs, head of the Madrid-based think tank FRIDE, May 2012).

“Portugal is not Greece.” (Pedro Passos Coelho, Portuguese Prime Minister, June 2012).

“Italy is not Spain.” (Ed Parker, senior director of Fitch Ratings Agency, June 2012).

“Greece is not Argentina.” (Yiannis Stournaras, Greek Minister of Competition, July 2012).

“Germany is not Zimbabwe.” (Paul Casson, fund manager from Henderson Global Investors, June 2012).

“Spain is not Uganda.” (Mariano Rajoy, Spanish Prime Minister, June 2012).

“Uganda does not want to be Spain.” (Asuman Kiyingi, Foreign Minister of Uganda, June 2012).

The title of the article alludes to a poem byNobel laureate GünterGrass published in April by the same paper. Highly critical of Israel, the poem sparked an international controversy.

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