Im stephen sackur. Greeces debt crisis and economic collapse used to be headline news, not so much any more. But does that mean the country is in recovery . Not if you ask your average greek. Almost half of all young people are jobless, the elderly continue to see their pensions cut, austerity bites deeper with every new release of european bailout money. My guest is greeces economy minister, dimitri papadimitriou. Is there any way out of the hole greece is in . Dimitri papadimitriou, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you very much for having me. There you were at the end of last year, enjoying your post as a highly respected academic economist in the united states. You were plucked from that into a senior ministerialjob, the economy minister in athens. Do you regret taking thatjob, given what has happened in the last six months . Actually, i dont. I think its an important challenge. I cherish the opportunity to serve my country and i think i can do some good. And therefore, over the last sev
Im stephen sackur. Greeces debt crisis and economic collapse used to be headline news, not so much any more. But does that mean the country is in recovery . Not if you ask your average greek. Almost half of all young people are jobless, the elderly continue to see their pensions cut, austerity bites deeper with every new release of european bailout money. My guest is greeces economy minister, dimitri papadimitriou. Is there any way out of the hole greece is in . Dimitri papadimitriou, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you very much for having me. There you were at the end of last year, enjoying your post as a highly respected academic economist in the united states. You were plucked from that into a senior ministerialjob, the economy minister in athens. Do you regret taking thatjob, given what has happened in the last six months . Actually, i dont. I think its an important challenge. I cherish the opportunity to serve my country and i think i can do some good. And therefore, over the last sev
make greece more attractive the outside world. for foreigners the rest of us and the rest of the world, we ll be encouraged to buy greek goods and services including tourism. reporter: however that devaluation will have negative consequences inside greece at least in the short term. at least ordinary greeks will feel worse off and they may well be demonstrating in the streets and creating a real problem. the difficulty for authorities is to hold their nerve. reporter: greece won t be able to instantly print drachmas. the euro will have to be accepted and other forms of payment will evolve. they will invent all sorts of other ways. people do when there is a shortage of currency. in some countries people have used cigarettes and run a form of credit. it s possible that the