The Greek people do not want to exit the euro, and I believe the Greek people already have shown that they have made major sacrifices to stay within the Eurozone.

I never thought about becoming a politician. But during the military dictatorship, my grandfather was put in prison six times and my father twice. If my family and my country didn't have this history, I might be a professor somewhere today.

I would like to see Greece as a case study, an opportunity for Europe to strengthen its coordination of fiscal policy.

First of all, Greece won't go down. We're talking about a country that is capable of making change. Europe will not allow the destabilization of the 27-country euro zone. But if there were no action, then markets would start becoming jittery about other countries - and not only Spain and Portugal, but other countries in the European Union.

We had about 60 regions in Greece and now there are only 13. It'd be like cutting down 50 states to 13 and making it more efficient.

I can officially state that my government and myself believe that all over Europe we need to open a debate on the 'drug question' in order to create more coherent and human policies with better perspectives. . . . The policy of criminalizing consumers has failed, creating many problems to our society.

We stand united, facing the big responsibility to change our country into a nation of justice, solidarity, humanity and green development.