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George Provopoulos said Greece faced a stark choice between overhauling its economy or turning back the clock on economic progress.
"There is no easy way out of the crisis. The adjustment must be pursued with determination", Mr Provopoulos said in a speech. "What is at stake is the choice between an orderly, albeit painstaking, effort to reconstruct the economy within the euro area, with the support of our partners, or a disorderly economic and social regression, taking the country several decades back, and eventually driving it out of the euro area and the European Union", he said.
In a report on Tuesday, the central bank cut its forecast for the Greek economy from an estimated contraction of 4.5 per cent this year—compared with a 6.9 per cent decline last year. Greece is now struggling through a fifth straight year of recession, made worse by austerity measures imposed on the country by its international lenders in exchange for two successive bailouts aimed at helping Athens emerge from its sovereign debt crisis.
The warning from Mr Provopoulos brought a rare reference to the possibility that Greece may have to leave the eurozone and revert to a national currency. Senior European Union officials tend to avoid raising the possibility of any country leaving the euro bloc, fearing it could spook investors and trigger bank runs in other vulnerable eurozone countries, like Spain or Portugal.