From left clockwise, Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Jean-Claude Juncker, Alexis Tsipras, Donald Tusk, Uwe Corsepius and Mario Draghi participate in a round table meeting on Greece at an EU summit in Brussels
Alexis Tsipras is visiting Germany for the first time since becoming Greece’s prime minister, meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday as his debt-ridden country and its key creditor seek to halt a downward spiral in relations.
Tsipras’ visit comes after Merkel and other European leaders last week told Tsipras to come up soon with budget cuts and tax increases that would enable him to get urgently needed bailout money.
Merkel has downplayed chances of Tsipras producing those measures when they meet, saying “it is not the place for any lists with proposed reforms to be submitted” and they must go to Greece’s international debt inspectors, not to Germany.
Tsipras’ first weeks in office have been marked by tensions over the two governments’ contrasting approaches to the debt crisis and Athens’ revival of calls for new reparations from Berlin stemming from Germany’s World War II occupation of Greece.
Tsipras’ party won general elections in January after campaigning against the spending cuts favored by Germany in exchange for 240 billion euros (USD260 billion) in international bailout money. The new government agreed a month ago to push through reforms in exchange for keeping European Union aid flowing, but has delayed submitting the measures for approval.
German officials have complained about their Greek counterparts making commitments and then publicly casting doubt on them, but also insist the debt spat isn’t a bilateral matter between the two countries.
German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told ARD television Sunday he hopes for a “new beginning” in relations.
“The Greek government must clearly recognize that the rest of Europe, Germany too, wants to help but that we cannot do that without something in return, without fair agreements on the necessary reforms,” he said — though he added that “social hardship is huge” in Greece and must be addressed.
Merkel’s governing coalition insists talk of wartime reparations has no place in discussions of Greece’s current debt troubles. Greece believes it is due payments for wrecked infrastructure, war crimes and a loan that occupied Greece was forced to make to the Nazis, but German officials say the matter has been resolved through previous payments and agreements.
The two countries’ foreign ministers met on Sunday night and agreed to work on strengthening relations. Germany’s Frank-
Walter Steinmeier said that the debt crisis must not be allowed to “erode the strong foundations of German-Greek relations.”
Greek counterpart Nikos Kotzias, in an interview with German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, advocated creating a German-Greek panel of experts to examine the reparations issue —
but Germany promptly made clear that it isn’t interested.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer reiterated that “for us, the chapter of reparations is politically and legally concluded.”
Gabriel said that “it makes no sense to make an attempt now to exert moral pressure on Germany along the lines of, ‘you must accommodate us more on the question of the euro and in the debt crisis.’”
“The two things have nothing to do with each other,” he added.
The parliamentary chief whip of Merkel’s conservatives, Michael Grosse-Broemer, was blunter.
“The reparations demands were another distraction from Greece to divert attention from their own failings,” Grosse-Broemer told Deutschlandfunk radio. Geir Moulson, Berlin, AP
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