Angela Merkel receives Alexis Tsipras in Berlin Monday to try to defuse tension between a strapped Greece, which wants to end austerity, and Germany defending a hard line among European creditors.
The Chancellor, who has already met with his counterpart at the weekend during a mini-summit in Brussels, said “rejoice his visit,” and expressed a desire to continue their discussions “with the idea that differences of opinion can turn into convergence.”
For his part, Alexis Tsipras says he is happy with a “meeting that will not happen under the pressure of any negotiation.”
“This is important because we can and discuss topics that put undermined Europe, as well as improving relations between our two countries, “he said Sunday in the Greek daily Kathimerini.
This first meeting face to face Monday at 5:00 p.m. ( 1600 GMT) should help to end the poisonous atmosphere that is installed between Athens and Berlin since the election of a government of radical left end of January in Greece economically asphyxiated.
This climate is especially harmful when being played by some to rescue the country or expulsion from the euro area.
Hajo Funke, a political scientist at the Free University of Berlin, these tensions are the illustration of “the two worlds of confrontation.”
On the one hand, “a Greek left government, socially engaged, is facing a collapse of the society, as no country in western Europe has known since 1945, “describes Mr Funke. And in front, Germany, countries “satisfied, happy and seen as economically dominant power in Europe, is concerned to preserve the relative economic health.”
On Friday, Alexis Tsipras pledged in Brussels to achieve faster expensive promises of reform in Berlin while the Commission announced making available of Athens “two billion euros for the year 2015,” from unused structural funds.
The release of the necessary financial support to the Greek State to stay afloat (7.2 billion euros) remains on the table of the finance ministers of the euro area.
The Minister Spanish Economy Luis de Guindos said in an interview published Sunday by the Financial Times that the euro area will not release the promised funds to Greece as the country has not initiated all the announced reforms.
“We’ll see if the list of reforms is fairly complete or not. [But] there will be no payment before there was a real test showing that the reforms were approved and launched “said Luis de Guindos British newspaper.
This statement contradicts the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who said that European funds would begin to be disbursed once Greece has presented a new list reforms to its creditors.
“Time is running out for Greece,” warned his side Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister Angela Merkel who does not hide his weariness towards Athens. “So far, nobody understood what wanted the Greek government,” he grumbled earlier this week
-. Toxic Game ‘-
Recurrent outputs of this apostle of rigor, which was caricatured in Nazi uniform with a satirical newspaper in Greece and embittering relations between the two countries, accused the Greek Minister of Defence.
The Germany, meanwhile, is annoyed style Yanis Varoufakis, Greek Minister of Finance omnipresent in the media. A video showing the making the finger to the creditors of the country, during a debate in 2013, has unleashed passions, even if no one knows if it is a real sequence or installation .
The Greek Foreign Minister, Nikos Kotzias, has meanwhile proposed the creation of a council of German-Greek wise to find a solution to the issue of war reparations demanded by Athens in an interview published Monday by the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The desire to Athens to demand reparations from Germany for the Second World war crimes case that Berlin considers legally and politically closed has completed to maintain the tension while the German population, persuaded to pay for the states of southern Europe, is becoming increasingly hostile to the aid plans.
This general exasperation expressed violent in the columns of powerful daily Bild. In late February, the vote in the Bundestag an extension of the aid package for Greece, the newspaper had published selfies its readers invited to exhibit a full page of the newspaper struck out with a “Nein.”
On his blog Friday, Mr. Varoufakis called Greeks and Germans to “end the toxic interplay of mutual accusations and moralistic fingers that only benefit the enemies of Europe.”
In addition to the war of words, caricatures and shrugs tone, the governments of both countries find themselves in fact a common fear: the “Grexit” a Greek exit of the Eurozone Mr. Tsipras as Merkel wish to avoid
23/03/2015 6:15:59. – Berlin (AFP) – By Eloi ROUYER – © 2015 AFP
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