German President Joachim Gauck has stirred his government by remarking in an interview that Germany should at least “consider” demands by leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that the nation pay billions of euros in reparations for the Nazi occupation of Greece.
Days after being pulled back from leading the Greek diplomatic team in talks with the European Union regarding the nation’s astronomical debt, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and his wife, Danae Stratou, were the victims of an anarchist mob attack while dining out.
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Bloomberg Business understandably sees all sorts of signals in Greece’s decision to pull Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis back from bailout negotiations, a move it describes as “clipping Varoufakis’ wings” and “reining him in” after three months of debt talks failed to produce an agreement.
While the ongoing migrant crisis in the Mediterranean Sea has captured the world’s attention after more than 800 people drowned in a capsized ship headed to Italy last week, a parallel situation has begun to unravel in the Aegean, with more than 100 mostly Syrian refugees drowning in the last 48 hours as they attempted to reach Greece.
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In what was received as a pleasant surprise by the European Union, Greece made its first 460 million euro payment to the IMF this week. The Mediterranean country continues to struggle with generating enough revenue to pay off their multi-billion-dollar debt, and one major international player looking to capitalize on their need for business is China.
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The government of Greece’s Radical Left Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has been demanding Germany pay reparations to the nation for damage committed by the Nazis during World War II for months, but now they have officially calculated a fixed amount they would like back: 279 billion euros.
Leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, during a visit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, raised the issue of Greece receiving war reparations for the damage the Nazis did to the country in World War II. Despite Merkel’s rapid dismissal of the possibility, the two appeared cordial and friendly during their public press event leading up to a reception dinner.
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The eleventh-hour decision to extend Greece’s bailout a few weeks ago turns out to have been an even closer shave than it seemed at the time, with Reuters reporting that a massive revolt among German conservatives left the vote “hanging by a thread,” as one German legislator put it. Escalating tensions between sullen Greece and fed-up Germany could make the votes on further bailout extensions or new financing deals even tighter.
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A group of 50 anarchist political activists took over the official headquarters of ruling Greek party Syriza in Athens on Sunday, demanding the leftist group enact prison reform and free a terrorist caught after injuring himself with his own bomb.
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Greece’s new socialist government appears to have given up on its demands for debt relief without spending controls, at least for the time being.
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The new socialist government of Greece is not having much success convincing its European creditors to forget about billions of dollars in debt, and then loan Greece even more money. Bloomberg News reports Commerzbank AG is doubling the odds of a Greek exit from the Eurozone to 50 percent, which sounds like a polite underestimation of the odds, given the sudden and acrimonious end of the latest debt talks.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whose socialist administration has been a staunch supporter of the radical leftist anti-austerity parties rising to prominence in Greece and Spain, claimed on a national broadcast last week that Greek PM ‘Comrade Alexis’ Tsipras has agreed to visit Venezuela and several other socialist Latin American nations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Wednesday that Russia would consider financial aid to Greece should the circumstances allow, with the caveat that Russia’s economy is not in the greatest state it could be to help bail out anyone else. Lavrov’s comments echo those of the nation’s Finance Minister in January following the election of new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
Over the weekend, former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan predicted that Greece will end up leaving the eurozone and that the euro will not long survive its departure.
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