Madrid Mayor Urges Europe to Write Off Greek Debt

Europe should review the Greek debt issue and write off the country’s repayments to its international creditors, Madrid Mayor Manuela Carmena said Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Carmena, a left-wing politician supported by the Spanish anti-austerity Podemos party, said that Greek society would not be able to develop if the majority of its people continued to have to make sacrifices and suffer under austerity.

"I think perhaps Europe is making a mistake with Greece. Europe needs to realize that Greece is Europe, and it can’t go through a situation of austerity and the economy collapse. We need a total rethink. We need to recognize that debt repayments need to be suspended, as it has been in other parts of the world," Carmena said in an interview with the France24 television channel.

On August 14, the Eurogroup approved an 86-billion-euro ($93 billion) bailout package aimed at rebuilding Greece's ailing economy in exchange for reforms to its taxation and pension system.

Greece owes more than $270 billion to its main international creditors — the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and eurozone nations.