CEPII - Event

Rencontres
Europe et International

Friday February 3, 2017

12:30 - 14:30

Uncertainty surrounds the future of the European Union and its place in the world. The crisis set in motion a whole range of initiatives and institutional changes and in Europe, both at the EU28 and euro area levels. These now have to blossom into a solid and durable edifice.

A challenge is therefore to make sure that the next steps in European integration live up to the economic, institutional, political, social and governance challenges that Europe is facing.

In that context, CEPII and France Stratégie have launched a series of monthly events – lunchtalks - about Europe with the aim to bring together officials, academics, as well as practitioners and corporates around a relevant speaker selected for his relevance for European matters.

George Papaconstantinou on "Game over: The Inside Story of the Greek Crisis"

In October 2009, Greece’s newly elected government revealed the state of the country’s finances, ‎sparking a crisis for which the Eurozone was unprepared and whose dramatic economic and social ‎consequences are still being felt today. Could the Greek crisis have been dealt with differently? ‎Instead of accepting the first bailout in 2010, should Greece have threatened to default in order to ‎get a better deal? Should there have been debt relief from the beginning? Would Greece have been ‎better off if it had left the euro? Has Greece saved the euro but not itself?‎

These questions and others will be addressed by George Papaconstantinou, Greece’s Finance ‎Minister during the early years of the crisis. His recently published book ‎ offers an insider’s view of ‎how disaster was only narrowly averted more than once during the crisis.

Lunch served before the start of the event..
The event will take place under Chatham House Rules.
The presentation and discussion will be held in English.
By invitation only.