Without euro, Greece would be Albania: socialists

Leaving the eurozone would turn Greece into a state like Albania, the head of the crisis-hit country's socialist Pasok party warned on Wednesday, four days ahead of cliffhanger general elections.

Proposals of the far-left Syriza party to tear up a bailout deal with the EU and IMF "would take Greece out of the eurozone, to the Albanisation of the country", Evangelos Venizelos said.

"Our Greece is a strong Greece, their Greece is the Greece of isolation and the drachma," the told a news conference broadcast on national television, referring to the country's previous currency.
He said that the election would "determine the fate of the country for the next 20 years".
Venizelos was finance minister until earlier this year and helped negotiate a second bailout package with the European Union and International Monetary Fund in return for deep austerity cuts.
Pasok, in a coalition led by technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos with the New Democracy conservatives, is heading for a drubbing in the election, with polls indicating support of just 19 percent compared with 44 percent in 2009.