German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that during his meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis they had agreed that Germany will supply Greece with tanks, so that Greece can send its weapons to Ukraine.
Scholz and Mitsotakis met on the sidelines of the extraordinary EU summit in Brussels on Tuesday.
The unexpected announcement surprised Greeks and short time later, the Greek National Defense Ministry said that Greece will send older German tanks to Ukraine from its own stock, while Germany will immediately replace these with newer ones.
Greece received the BMP-1 type tanks it will send Ukraine in 1994, and will receive Merder-type tanks in their place.
The agreement follows up on recent discussions between the two countries, the Defense Ministry added in its statement.
Hours later, POLITICO reported:
Germany has arranged a tank swap with Greece, allowing Athens to send Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.
It comes after Polish President Andrzej Duda accused Berlin last week of breaking its tank-swap promise with Warsaw: https://t.co/wVFUu7BLqM pic.twitter.com/rtctDAiSUN
— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) May 31, 2022
Back in Athens, strong reactions came by left-wing opposition parties.
SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance pointed out in a statement that “it is inconceivable that Greek people hear this news from the German chancellor rather than the Greek prime minister, who said nothing of the fact in his own interview.”
The Greek government “must stop taking decisions on critical issues of national significance in secret,” noted Syriza, “especially so when the majority of Greek people are opposed to choices that pose risks to the country’s security and run against our national interests.”
Commenting on the same issue, PASOK-KINAL said that “the government ought to inform political parties of all this agreement’s aspects.”
The fact that Mitsotakis did not reveal the agreement during press statements “has naturally raised questions questions about the real content of his meeting with Mr. Scholz,”it added.
so would these by any chance be the tanks which we bought under samara’s administration, from the germans, for about 2 billion?
so i guess well just put the future generations even deeper in debt to buy shiny new ones.
profit for the corrupt corporations! and im sure some kickbacks to mitsotaki inc.
trading makes economy go round & round & round & ….
Did the article claim this was form a previous order?
“kickbacks to Mitsotakis”? LOL
My goodness you have a vivid imagination. Have you any idea how breathtakingly challenged you sound?