Greek Journalist Fined €25,000 for Calling Merkel a ‘tart’

Yiorgos Trangas, the radio journalist who referred to the German chancellor as the “tart of Berlin” during a live broadcast was fined 25,000 euro. Trangas, who was described by German DER SPIEGEL as ‘cult figure’ has been ‘fighting’ through his radio and television show against the “German Economic Occupation” since Greece sought the aid of IMF and the EU.

The National Council of Radio and Television (ESR) fined Real FM for comments made by Yiorgos Trangas about Angela Markel on two occasions in September and October of last year.

The council said Trangas had abused the Greek language and made obscene characterisations about the German chancellor.

The ESR issued the fine after it received a number of complaints from listeners to Trangas’ show.

On Wednesday morning, a tearful Trangas appeared on the Proino Antenna morning show on Antenna TV, expressing his regret that a fine had been issued.

Real FM has the right to appeal the decision.

“At 63, I’m being told that I’m a typical Balkan southerner, who is lazy and a schemer. Really! I’ve been working since I was 16! I’ve worked night and day for a half a century. So why are we told we’re lazy and crooks?”

He added: “The Greek are the Jews of 2012. I respect the Jews for the genocide they underwent in the Second World War. But in any case, I feel distanced from the Aryan race.” (source: Athens News)

Yiorgos Trangas who also writes columns in newspapers, runs a television programm and has hos own magazine has an obsesion with the “German Economic Occupation”, that is the leading role of Germany within the eurogroup and the European Union.

German weekly magazine Der Spiegel dedicated a whole page to Trangas. In the article “Railing Against the ‘Fourth Reich’: Anti-German Mood Heats Up in Greece” Der Spiegel describes Trangas as a cult figure with lots of tirades.

Should the conversation turn to German Chancellor Angela Merkel — or should it be forced in such a direction by Trangas — the host completely loses all control. “She acts as though she were clean. But in reality, German companies have been paying bribes in Greece for years and handing out risky loans,” he says. “Merkel is lying when she says that she knew nothing about all that. But now, she is playing the fiscal watchdog.” The rant goes on for minutes. Trangas rattles off statistics mixed with random references to the Nazi regime. Even the studio guests begin to hang their heads sheepishly.

A monitor hangs on the wall directly behind Trangas. On this evening, the image remains neutral. But that is not always the case. On occasion, Trangas is fond of displaying images of Merkel conflated with marching German soldiers from World War II.

Just minutes after the show is over, an amicable Trangas is relaxing in his office. He has his bodyguard bring a drink to his guest from Germany before saying: “I don’t actually have anything against Germans.” But, he says, he detests what Merkel and the troika she supposedly leads is doing to Greece.

Trangas stared into the camera and turned to his favourite subject: the Germans, and how they are cold-bloodedly shoving Greece into the abyss. “Germany doesn’t care that 3 million pensioners are dying here,” he raged.

Yiorgos Trangas delivered his show at private broadcaster Extra, a channel full of angry broadsides against the “German occupiers”.  Trangas stared into the camera and turned to his favourite subject: the Germans, and how they are cold-bloodedly shoving Greece into the abyss. “Germany doesn’t care that 3 million pensioners are dying here,” he raged.

“The sentence is one of his more harmless utterances on this evening” writes Der Spiegel.

Had the German weekly knew, that Trangas’s favorite describtion of  Angela Merkel is the “Witch of Berlin”… And this is the ‘polite’ translation of the Greek word he spits out.