Barroso: Greece made 'unrealistic promises' to voters as Syriza party lacks experience
The Greek authorities made "completely unrealistic promises" to voters that it cannot now fulfil, the former European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso has said, adding that Alexis Tsipras's Syriza-led administration lacked experience.
In an interview with BBC Live, he said Greece's demands were "completely unacceptable to other countries."
"It is not helpful if Greece attacks countries that are trying to help it."
Mr Barroso noted that there are poorer countries that are lending money to Greece, so to propose to reduce to their debt would be certain to receive a no from their partners.
Greece has to take responsibility for its financial plight, in his opinion, and implement structural reforms.
"The problems in Greece are structural: low productivity and previous governments," he said adding that it was not Germany or any other member of the EU that created the problems in Greece.
Looking back at Ireland, Portugal and Spain, Barroso outlined that they had come back from the financial brink and Mr Barroso said Greece could do the same: "There is nothing regarding Greece that prevents it being successful, but... bad politics have created a lot of problems for Greece."
Regarding the so called "Grexit", Mr Barroso said a Greek departure from the euro region would still be "negative", but considered it would be less damaging now because financial markets were much more confident than they had been in recent years.
He added, however, that Greece's exit would still leave the idea of monetary union in doubt, as it would break a taboo and create a precedent.
He repeated his idea that Britons would be worse off if the UK left the European Union.
"I believe they would lose a lot if it leaves the EU, because today, in the 21st century, versus the US, China, countries of 60 million people, they cannot speak at the same level - they do not have the same leverage - and we have to use the EU and our common leverage to count in the world."
