Greece refers to Holocaust in German bailout fight

LONDON: The Greek foreign minister has claimed that his country deserves EU help because it has not committed crimes on the scale of the Holocaust – while Germany has confirmed that it will not pay Greece war reparations.

Angela Merkel met far-Left Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras in Berlin yesterday – his first visit to Germany since he came to power in January.

Tsipras is understood to have told the German Chancellor that Greece would face insolvency within weeks without the release of more funds.

However, the meeting was overshadowed by comments from Nikos Kotzias, the Greek foreign minister, who said in an interview that his country deserved to be treated as leniently as post-war Germany.

He suggested that Germany should help set up a commission to come up with a plan to compensate Greece for the suffering caused by the Nazis during World War II.

The Greek government is claiming that Germany must now repay a loan which was “forced” on Athens in 1942, as well as pay for Nazi atrocities.

And speaking to a German newspaper yesterday, Kotzias pointed out that Germany had not been made to make arduous repayments after the war.

He told Suddeutsche Zeitung: “The Allies were very generous with Germany; they did not smother Germany. There was an interest to build Germany up again. Don’t we have the same rights?”

At the press conference yesterday, Tsipras also renewed the demand for war reparations, saying: “We must work on the issue of forced loans and Second World War reparations.”

However, Merkel said she viewed the demands as an attempt to distract from the need for economic reforms, adding: “The issue of war reparations is closed from a political and legal point of view. The topic has no relationship with the crisis and its emergencies.”

Merkel was careful to point out that Germany was only one of the eurozone nations that would be responsible for deciding whether Greece’s reforms are sufficient, and said that no decisions had been made in her talks with Tsipras.

European leaders are currently refusing to give Greece any more money unless the Left-wing government commits to reforms. – Daily Mail