Galery

3

2

1

The Greek chauvinism crossed all limits when the first substitute of the Prime Minister George Papandreou asked in an official interview for BBC from Germany to at least apologize to Greece if not to compensate for the occupation during the 40s of the past centuries. Teodoros Pangalos used rude words and impermissible remarks about the similarity of today’s government in the face of the chancellor Angela Merkel and the inspirer of the German national-socialists Adolf Hitler. The interview comes in a very delicate for Greece moment, when the bankrupt member of the euro zone desperately needs the German financial guarantee.

The spokesmen of the German Ministry of foreign affairs Andreas Peske retorted the statement that Germany has not paid for the occupation of Greece. “Until1960 Greece was compensated with 115 million German marks and additional payments have been made for the compulsory usage of workers”, said Peske and added: “And after 1960 Germany has paid subsidies to Greece in the amount of 33 billion marks from a bilateral point of view and because of the European Union.” According to the spokesman binding today’s problems with arguments from the past is not at all productive as far as both of the countries are members of the united Europe.

The statement of Pangalos forced Angela Markel to invite the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou to visit Berlin on March 5^th. The major problem of Greece is not the unpaid reparations by Germany, but the fact that the large German banks refute to grant credits. As the German media summarize all the biggest banks have announced their intention to stop investing in Greek government bonds. The two most important German public financiers “Oirohipo” and “Hipo Real Estate” will not purchase Greek bonds in the upcoming round for financing the problematic country. Postbank will also not pump fresh money into the Greek financial system. Deutsche bank has announced that it will mediate in the process of purchasing bonds, but it will not purchase any itself. The same opinion are expressing also the bigger provincial banks like BayernLB and LBBW.

All of this comes as a response to the grand plan of the French president Nicolas Sarkozy to make the financial institutions in Germany and France purchase Greek government bonds at any price. Sarkozy also insists that it should be mandatory for these financial institutions to purchase the Greek government bonds for financing the national debt at prices offered by the Greek government in case that the international markets cannot take up the emission. The reaction of the German banks is natural. Currently they have invested in Greek government bonds 43 billion euro. Only “Hipo Real Estate” holds Greek bonds for over 9 billion euro. Komercbank has Greek bonds for 4,6 billion euro and few billions have also paid the provincial banks for these bonds.

Today an unexpected visit in Athens paid the manager of Deutsche bank Josef Akerman. His visit was related to the invitation of Merkel to Papandreou. Akerman himself refuted to comment on the purpose of his visit: “I like Greece and its climate”, was the comment of probably the busiest and caught up in responsibilities banker in the Euro zone. For the political and economic observers the message is clear: “Stop with the rhetoric. Sit on your asses and start working. Leave the economy to the experts. If they are sure that you do your homework our banks keep on supporting you”.

This however is a language that the Greeks do not speak. They want revenge for the middle finger of Venus de Milo. And while they are at the top of the revenge wave, the financial guarantee from Germany will not be certain.