Germany’s Merkel arrives in Greece for last official trip

German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Athens Thursday night where she was scheduled to have a one-on-one dinner with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. On Friday she will meet with Mitsotakis and President Katerina Sakellaropoulou to discuss energy policy, the coronavirus pandemic, immigration and Greece’s tense relations with neighboring Turkey over territorial disputes and drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean.

Merkel and Mitsotakis will hold a press conference after the Friday meetings.

The trip, Merkel’s fourth, will also be her last official visit. “The Chancellor is grateful that she has received this invitation (from Mitsotakis). She is looking forward to her visit to Athens and to the talks there,” said her spokesman Steffen Seibert while speaking with reporters in Berlin Wednesday. 

• The Greek debt crisis: A brief history

  Greek crisis takes form

  On the heels of a global financial crisis, Greece’s then-prime minister, George Papandreou, revealed in 2009 that the budget deficit was over 12 percent, double what it was previously thought. It was later revised to 15 percent, far exceeding the eurozone’s 3-percent limit. The revelation prompted credit rating agencies to downgrade Greece’s status, making it hard for Athens to get financial help.

• The Greek debt crisis: A brief history

  Austerity sparks unrest

  In a bid to help Athens out, the EU and IMF agreed to bailout Greece in 2010. The program required austerity measures to cut the budget deficit, a move that didn’t sit well with many Greeks. In response, anti-austerity protesters organized nationwide strikes and demonstrations to protest the measures and, at times, clashed with police. Mass protests took off in 2011 and continued for years.

• The Greek debt crisis: A brief history

  Rise of the fringe

  Resentful of growing unemployment and poverty, a majority of Greeks in 2012 voted for fringe parties that opposed the bailout and the austerity measures that came with it. The first election resulted in no clear winner and set the stage for another vote. After the second election, the center-right New Democracy was tasked with forming a new government. The party was committed to the bailout.

• The Greek debt crisis: A brief history

  Crash course

  In 2015, Greeks handed the left-wing Syriza party an anti-austerity mandate in snap elections, putting Athens on a crash course with Brussels. In June, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras controversially announced a referendum on EU bailout terms. On June 30, Greece became the first developed economy in the world to default on an IMF bailout. Athens imposed capital controls to stop capital flight.

• The Greek debt crisis: A brief history

  Turning point

  The bailout referendum resulted in a rejection of EU terms, with 61 percent voting against a new rescue program. But that didn’t stop Tsipris’ government from agreeing to new terms with Brussels after Greece’s then-Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis stepped down. It allowed Greece to avert an exit from the eurozone and paved the way for a new bailout program amounting to €86 million ($98 million).

• The Greek debt crisis: A brief history

  Road to recovery

  As part of the 2015 bailout program, Greece adopted economic reforms, including cutting public spending and privatizing state assets. Two years later, the IMF urged Brussels to ease its bailout program terms and provide extensive debt relief, describing Greece’s debt as unsustainable. In order to help Greece meets its bailout terms, Tsipras agreed to extend tax and pension reforms.

• The Greek debt crisis: A brief history

  End of an era?

  In August 2018, Greece officially exited its bailout program, with EU officials calling it the “beginning of a new chapter.” EU Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said Greeks “may not feel that their situation has yet improved much,” but the EU would continue “to work with you and for you.” However, with high unemployment and rampant poverty, some observers have cast doubt on the bailout’s success.

  Author: Lewis Sanders IV

Merkel a hated helper during the Greek debt crisis

Merkel has not always been welcomed to Greece with open arms. Many there still see her as the woman who forced austerity on the country during the 2009 Greek financial crisis, which grew into the decade-long euro crisis.

At the time, Merkel and her Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble were hated figures. Germany was the single biggest lender and Merkel and Schäuble, along with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) demanded huge budget cuts and drastic tax hikes in exchange for their support for three different international bailouts of more than €300 billion ($350 billion).

After she was greeted with mass demonstrations of Greeks waving posters showing her in a Hitler mustache in 2012, Athens banned protests during her 2014 and 2019 visits.

Although protests were banned, Greeks so reviled Merkel that they clashed with police to protest her 2019 visit

Merkel ‘the most difficult moment’ in her 16 years in power

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is one of many Greek officials who say the country has changed. And he has spoken positively about the chancellor, noting that she has a “special relationship” with Greece.

Last week in Brussels, the conservative politician said: “I think she will be the first to admit — she has already done so — that she has repeatedly asked a lot from the Greeks and that austerity went beyond what Greek society could bear. But at the same time, it was she who went against the recommendations of her ministers to keep Greece in the eurozone.” 

In September, Merkel told Greek journalists that bailout negotiations had been “the most difficult moment” of her 16 years in office. Indeed the crisis wiped out a quarter of Greece’s economy and sparked massive unemployment.

As Greece recovered, attitudes toward Merkel also softened. When she was welcomed in 2019 by then Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras — a fierce critic during the crisis years — she seemed relieved, saying “the difficulties now lie behind us.”

js/aw (AFP, AP, dpa)

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-s-merkel-arrives-in-greece-for-last-official-trip/a-59658409?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf