German Chancellor Angela Merkel met the wife of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during the dinner of the 27 European Union leaders in Rome on Saturday. According to daily to Ethnos, it was the first time Betty Batziana was introduced to the German Chancellor.
“Merkel was more than effusive with Batziana,” the daily reports adding that the Chancellor even expressed some complain to the wife of Greece Prime Minister.
PM Alexis Tsipras, partner Betty Batziana in Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2017.
No, it is not what you think. Angela Merkel did not complain about delays in reforms or in second review, about primary surplus targets, delays in labor market reforms and further pensions cuts. This is the duty of her finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.
Merkel’s complain was reportedly that Alexis Tsipras never invited her to officially visit Greece.
“You know, Alexis never invited me to Greece,” Merle allegedly said, whereas Betty Baziana told her that she is welcome to visit Greece privately at any time.
As for the official invitation, she would personally take care of it, when the Greek program completes, Betty Batziana told the German Chancellor joking.
Peristera “Betty” Batziana, 42, and Alexis Tsipras, 42, are not married. They are registered partners. They have two children.
For the first time Angela Merkel visited Greece under bailout agreements in October 2012 and the public ‘welcome’ was anything but warm, with more than 50,000 people on the streets, outside the Greek Parliament, chanting and shouting against her.
She repeated her visit in April 2014, apparently to show her support to her ideological brother, the conservative government of New Democracy and Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, ahead of the European Parliament elections. Greek voters were not impressed.
In March 2015, one and a half month after he gained power, newly appointed Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras visited Berlin following an invitation by the German chancellor. It seemed that Merkel wanted to intervene and diffuse the tough crisis between the Europeans, the left-wing Greek government and finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.
It turned out that Merkel had no will to intervene in favor of Greece.
The invitation to Greek PM was merely her obligation, in terms of reciprocity and protocol.
In this context, yes, it is Tsipras’ turn to invite her in Athens.
But times are economically and politically bad. The planets stand retrograde. It is also windy and partly cloudy.
Merkel is right: she has a duty to visit the newly acquired territories of the 4th Reich. Why does she need an invitation from her employee? Strange…
If it was me, I WOULD invite Ms. Merkel to Greece and then show her around a little…make her meet the people whose lives have been destroyed, show her the crumbling health care system, infrastructure and so on…if it was me…
They can meet in her new house in Imia thinking it’s Tinos and later, when she wants to see inhabitants, she can’t find any fish