Nominate an EU Commissioner to help return Greece to growth, says Juncker

A European Commissioner should be nominated to help return Greece to growth, Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker told the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on Wednesday. He also observed that there was scope for cuts in the country's military spending.

Speaking at one of his regular meetings with the committee, Mr Juncker fielded MEPs' concerns about the need for growth to emerge from the fiscal crisis, the next steps in solving Greece's problems and boosting the firepower of the bailout funds.

Mr Juncker said he had hoped this would have been the week when a decision was taken to boost the European Stability Mechanism's capital, but the idea "needed to mature further in some countries". 

On Greece, he said the Eurogroup would be keenly awaiting the participation rate of private Greek bondholders, which "would need to reach 66% for the collective action clauses to be activated".

He also stressed that the Greek government needed to act on the commitments it had given to ensure that the second bailout programme could become effective, and at the same time insisted that "it was time to stop humiliating Greece".