Papandreou says EU, rating agencies are partly to blame

Athens: Former Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said European Union regulators and credit rating agencies bear some blame for his nation's debt crisis.

Papandreou, who resigned last month, said of the debt crisis that his predecessors "didn't really see it coming", according to the transcript of an interview scheduled for broadcast on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS.

"Had there been a stronger monitoring of the European Union from the European Union, and even the ratings agencies, on the member states, I would not have, as a prime minister, inherited a situation where the deficit was close to 16 per cent and the debt almost doubled," he said.

"That's why I think monitoring is important," Papandreou said. "We're paying for it right now, and many of the Greeks are unjustly paying for this, for things that they weren't responsible for," said Papandreou, whose government collapsed on November 10. He was replaced by Lucas Papademos, a former European Central Bank vice president. Greece needs a sixth disbursement of loans under a €110-billion (Dh540.9 billion) rescue and a planned second package of €130 billion to avoid economic collapse.