Mario Monti Quotes

I think the facts reveal that the European partners have taken extraordinary measures to help Greece address its problems.

We will do whatever we could do to keep Greece inside the euro and inside Europe.

For the next three years, we're going to see different economies work out different problems. For European economies, especially Greece, it would be through default.

The Obama administration's large and sustained increases in debt raise the specter of another financial crisis and large future tax increases, further chilling business investment and job creation.

Greece's debts are all denominated in euros, but it isn't clear who holds how much of those debts. For that reason, the consequences of a national bankruptcy would be incalculable. Greece is just as systemically important as a major bank.

The vast majority of Greeks accept the need for reform and want to keep our country inside the euro zone.

If you don't have a functioning financial system the world economy won't be revived. All the major economies have their responsibility to assist at a pace which is required to clean up the balance sheet of the banking system and to ensure that credit flows are resumed.

It is hard to imagine that, having downgraded the US, S & P will not follow suit on at least one of the other members of the dwindling club of sovereign AAAs. If this were to materialise and involve a country like France, for example, it could complicate the already fragile efforts by Europe to rescue countries in its periphery.

One needs a comprehensive concept that decides just how much debt states like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy can sustainably bear.

The lesson of history is that you do not get a sustained economic recovery as long as the financial system is in crisis.

I see nothing that points to a recession in Germany. But I see considerable long-term tasks ahead of us that have to do with markets regaining confidence in Europe and that have a lot to do with reducing debt.

Defaulting on the nation's debt would be cataclysmic. The U.S. Treasury's Aaa rating is the one constant in the world's financial system. When times are bad anywhere on the planet, global investors flock to Treasury bonds because they know they will get their money back.

I hope Greece is going to remain in the Euro zone.

America, ladies and gentlemen, has done more for me financially than Britain ever has, or ever could have done.

The financial crisis in our country is not a passing storm. Given the size of the problems, our national effort will not be completed in 2012. It will take many years and will require the efforts and insistence of several governments.

The Europeans governments have massively changed the landscape in Europe. There is no doubt about it. They have put together the European Financial Stability Fund. They have discussed and approved the European Stability Mechanism.

And then you might decide that the country can just spend maybe years or decades to regain that credit, or maybe give that county the support, the financial support that the market is not willing not do.

I think there will be no government bankruptcy in Greece.

Our position in Europe is not negotiable. The Greek people will defend it by all means. But participation in the euro involves rules and obligations, which we must consistently meet. Greece belongs to Europe and Europe cannot be envisaged without Greece.

America's downgrade may serve as a wakeup call for its policymakers. It is an unambiguous and loud signal of the country's eroding economic strength and global standing. It renders urgent the need to regain the initiative through better economic policymaking and more coherent governance.

Europe and the euro zone have no reason, rationally, to push Greece out of the euro. But this is a system in which many parties, many countries, many governments, many electorates participate and we could have events which, rationally, are not controllable.

If Spain goes under, Italy will come under even more scrutiny.

We will do everything to change what needs to be changed, fight against recession so that the country meets its targets, while reinforcing our country in the heart of the euro and the European Union.

Forget about banks that are too big to fail; the focus should be on cities, municipalities and countries that are too big to fail.

The International Monetary Fund is the doctor to sick economies.