Greek euro exit less damaging now: Dutch PM

(THE HAGUE) - A Greek exit from the eurozone now would be less risky than if it had happened in mid-2010 when its debt crisis first broke, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday as bailout talks in Athens went to the wire.

"There is less risk now," Rutte told public radio.

"It is in our interest that Greece remain (in the eurozone) and to achieve that it must do all it has promised to do ... but if that does not work out, then we are stronger now that a year and a half ago," he added.

The eurozone countries are now much stronger because they have taken measures to tame the debt crisis, such as recapitalising their banks and setting up the European Financial Stability Facility bailout fund, he said.

Rutte said he felt the same as European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes who, in an interview with a Dutch newspaper, stressed she was not in favour of Athens going back to the drachma but said a Greek departure from the monetary union would not be a disaster.

"It is not a train crash if someone leaves the eurozone," Kroes, also commissioner for digital technology, told De Volkskrant daily newspaper.

"It is still being said that if you let one country leave or ask them to leave, then the entire structure collapses. That is simply not true."

Kroes' remarks prompted a sharp response from her boss, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso who insisted that Greece will remain in the eurozone.

"We want Greece in the euro," Barroso told reporters.

"The cost of a Greek exit from the eurozone would be higher than the cost of continuing to support Greece," he said, adding that Greece was "very close" to an agreement on a debt rescue package, which includes a new bailout from governments and banks taking losses on their bond holdings.

"We, the commission, are doing all we can to reach a solution."