AlHijjah 7, 1432, Nov 3, 2011, SPA -- The eurozone is ready to let Greece leave the single currency if the country rejects its European Union-led bailout in a referendum, dpa quoted France's EU Affairs Minister Jean Leonetti as saying Thursday. After learning of the referendum plan, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou that rescue aid payments to Athens would be frozen until the vote, scheduled for early December. "The euro and Europe can survive" without a country that represents "2 per cent of eurozone gross domestic product and 4 per cent of eurozone debt," Leonetti told RTL radio. If Greek voters refuse conditions attached to EU and International Monetary Fund aid, "the country will head towards bankruptcy, it will have to leave the eurozone, but it will be a decision of the Greek people," the minister warned. "Greece is both something that we can overcome and something we can do without," Leonetti said. "We can help them, we can save them but not against their will. It's not because the pill is bitter that one should not take it, because the illness is very serious." Greece leaving the eurozone would be "a moral blow and a blow to morale, but in economic terms, it is possible," Leonetti insisted.
