On Wednesday, Greece’s ruling Socialists accused Cameron of insulting Athens by his comments, and said that the UK prime minister would do better to explain Britain’s bank interest rate-rigging scandal than unnerve markets with declaration of restricting immigration, Reuters reported.
The PASOK party, led by former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, demanded that either Cameron retract or rephrase his reported statement.
“Is the UK, which is not a member of the eurozone, so interested in the unity and stability of the eurozone that it is threatening policing measures which violate all principles, basic freedoms and rules of the European Union?” the party, which is a member of Greece’s new three-party conservative-led government, said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Cameron, who was responding to a possibility of migrants from debt-ridden eurozone countries flooding Britain, told a parliamentary committee, “The legal position is that if there are extraordinary stresses and strains, it is possible to take action to restrict migratory flows, but obviously we hope that doesn’t happen.”
Meanwhile, Yannis-Alexis Zepos, the Greek foreign ministry’s general secretary, told the British ambassador to Athens on Wednesday that such comments could harm the atmosphere of trust required to deal with the European crisis.
Greece has been at the epicenter of the eurozone debt crisis and is experiencing its fifth year of recession, while harsh austerity measures have left about half a million people without jobs.
One in every five Greek workers is currently unemployed, banks are in a shaky position, and pensions and salaries have been slashed by up to 40 percent.
Greek youths have also been badly affected, and more than half of them are unemployed.
The long-drawn-out eurozone debt crisis, which began in Greece in late 2009 and reached Italy, Spain, and France last year, is viewed as a threat not only to Europe but also to many of the world’s other more developed economies.
GJH/AS
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