News / Brèves Back to previous selection / Retour à la sélection précédente Economist Wilhelm Hankel to Greece: Leave Eurozone, Austerity Conditions Will Destroy Democracy 10 June 2011 Pr. Wilhelm Hankel Economist Wilhelm Hankel, in an interview with Austrian daily Der Standard published yesterday, demanded that Greece should leave the euro, for its own sake. The article was headlined "The Euro Was a Grotesque Error." He pointed out, once again, that the conditions that Greece has to fulfill, in order to receive some "help," will "lead to political destabilization. We in Germany above all have had the most bitter experiences in the years before Hitler, when a German Chancellor introduced deflation policy. This created a mass army of unemployed people and paved the way for the destruction of democracy." He also attacked the ECB, for buying junk bonds and issuing direct credit to nations. All of this, he said, is "against the ECB statutes." Also, he pointed out, the new ECB President, Mario Draghi of Italy, comes from a country which has never fulfilled any of the EU stability criteria, never should have been allowed to enter the Eurozone, and is contributing to the loss of trust for the ECB. Hankel said that, should countries like Greece or Portugal leave the euro, they could just join the other 10 EU countries that are not in the Eurozone, but are in the so-called "exchange rate mechanism."