While some Greeks still enjoy their summer vacation, some others work hard to get the debt-ridden country out of the economic mess and misery. Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos, for example, had to travel to Berlin to prepare the meeting between Prime Minister Antonis Samaras with German Chancellor Angela Merkel that will take place on upcoming Friday, August 24th, 2012. Samaras’ aim is to convince Merkel to approve a two-year extension time for Greece to meet fiscal targets.
Avramopoulos met with his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle. And there. Westerwelle did not give much of a hope to his Greek counterpart about Samaras’ ambitions.
“Following the meeting with his Greek counterpart Monday, Westerwelle said Greece needs to carry out its existing reform program and insisted anew that “a substantial softening of the agreements and the agreed reforms is not possible from the German government’s point of view.”
He added that Germany “wants us to remain together in the eurozone” but that “the key to success lies in Athens.”
Neither Westerwelle nor Avramopoulos would be drawn on whether Greece can or should get more time to fulfill its austerity and reform targets, insisting that they would wait for the troika report.
Avramopoulos underlined Greece’s will to implement its reform plans and cautioned against careless talk about Greece’s future. “We need responsibility,” he said through an interpreter. “There must no longer be … the speculation about Greece’s position in the euro or outside the euro.” (Full Article Associated Press)
I do not know, if Westerwelle’s statements are part of a pressure strategy to Greeks to proceed to the agreed reforms. However no decision should be expected in Berlin on the extension issue. Definitely not before Samaras meets with French President Francois Hollande in Paris on the following day. and not before Merkel and Hollande discuss the issue.
Nevertheless, Westerwelle and Avramopoulos urged the media to exercise restraint with hasty judgments about the Greek austerity program before the report by the EU, IMF and ECD representatives. “One should not play with fire and place a fire,” warned Westerwelle.
Maybe that was a warning also to the direction of German Economy Minister Philip Roesler, who happens to be the chairman of FDP, a party where Westerwelle was once chairman …
The ‘reforms’ were agreed with the same politicians who are responsible for this mess, not the people. The so-called reforms are to a large extent outright fraud such as:
-the state intervening to change private contracts(like a greek buying
a Bundesliga team and asking Parialment to changethe player’s contracts)
-the state intervening to change agreements mutually agreed between emploters and workers
-the state drsatically changing contracts its own energy company signed with solar power producers who were encouraged by the state, even taking loans to invest
In addition
-despite the ‘measures’ the result is ever increasing unemployment and rising costs of the greek products. And of course when the state itself intervenes to lower wages in the private sector it loses both direct and indirect taxes as well as pension funds, while whoever can, leaves.
-the state does nothing against those who brought the country to that mess
-the state continues to waste taxpayers and lenders money. One example is breaking its own rules to appoint people with no value and their own ‘rings’ or support to public positions. Another is to waste 15 mil plus government land to build … a mosque and pay the mufti for eternity. Or to pay top money to prosecutors who rules that a fugitive arrested is not suspect of fleeing and thus releasing him, so he dissapeared again, while to prosecutor has no responsibility.