By Simon R. Bone
Lucas Papademos, the former Vice President of European Central Bank and ex-Prime Minister of Greece was hosted two weeks ago in an exclusive roundtable discussion about the future of the Eurozone by the European Club of Harvard Kennedy School. Mr. Papademos referred during his speech to the progress that Eurozone countries have made in managing the crisis and offered a policymaking roadmap expedient to a sustainable economic recovery. In his view there has been an insufficient implementation of product markets reforms in several European countries. As a consequence consumer prices have not adjusted downwards adequately. Mr. Papademos addressed in a comprehensive way in the second half of the discussion the economic, political and financial risks posed to the economic recovery.
The two-hour event was moderated by Ioannis Tsoutsias, an HKS Mid-Career candidate and it was three times oversubscribed an indication of the strong interest of the HKS community in European affairs.