Europa handelt te langzaam in zake Griekenland volgens EU-parlementariërs (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A number of senior MEPs have criticised the European Commission for acting too slowly in tackling the problem of Greece's budget deficit and rising debt levels.
Speaking after the European legislature officially approved a new commission for the next five years, Liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt i said Europe had committed a "strategical error" in not intervening earlier in the Aegean country.
"The European Central Bank and the commission should have responded from the start with a package for Greece and then we needn't have gone through what we have seen in the last few weeks," he said.
Recent weeks have seen growing market doubts over Athens' ability to claw back its deficit and debt levels, leading concerned investors to demand higher bond yields as they weigh up the possibility of a potential debt default.
Greece's budget deficit hit 12.7 percent last year, with its debt-to-GDP ratio forecast to exceed 120 percent in 2010.
Centre-right EPP Group vice-chairwoman, Corien Wortmann-Kool i MEP, said she supported the commission's current strategy of closely monitoring Greece's timetable of austerity measures, but said it had come "months late."
Outgoing economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia, flanked by his successor Olli Rehn i, defended the commission's actions however.
"I don't know how Mr Verhofstadt defines 'late,' but I don't remember him turning to the commission very quickly when Belgium was in trouble," he said of the former Belgian president.
Mr Almunia pointed to the difficulties in obtaining accurate statistics on the state of Greece's economy and the change of government last autumn as slowing factors, and said little had been possible until Athens presented its stability programme on 15 January.
The Greek programme set outs a list of spending cuts and revenue-raising measures, as the country seeks to bring its budget deficit to below three percent by 2012.