Greek government needs to respect nation's 'sacrifices': central bank head

LONDON (Reuters) - Greece's government needs to respect the "sacrifices" its people have made and stay in the euro, the head of the country's central bank and ECB policymaker Yannis Stournaras said on Tuesday.

"We need a political system which will take responsibility and to respect the sacrifices by the people that have been made up to now," Stournaras said during a panel discussion at an event organised by think-tank Chatham House. "Decreases of living standards in the order of 35 percent are very unusual for an OECD country so this was a huge sacrifice of the Greek people, to make Greece viable and stay in the euro. So I think the political system should respect this."

(Reporting by John Geddie and Marc Jones)