“The only road to follow is that of dialogue” and in the end “we must admit that over the past five years bailing out Greece was not a success story“. The two statements were made during a joint press conference respectively by the German chancellor Angela Merkel and the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, at the end of the bilateral summit held yesterday in Berlin.
"We want an economically strong Greece“, added Merkel, underlining that she wants cooperation based on trust with Tsipras: “We want the country to grow and to emerge from high unemployment”, and in particular “from youth unemployment”, but “this it requires structural reforms and sound public finances".
Instead, the Greek premier explained that the methods of implementing the rescue program agreed at the time with the international community had the effect of increasing social inequality in the country and that the government now intends to tackle this problem.
The Athens government is ready to respect its commitments but the condition is that there is social justice, Tsipras reiterated, recalling that the Treaties must be respected, but "it is time to carry out major structural reforms and fight tax evasion and corruption". For the Greek premier, divisions within the Eurozone must be "avoided", and solutions must be sought "that bring benefits to both Greece and Europe".
Angela Merkel, in turn, said that Germany cannot make any promises on the liquidity issue for Greece: the questions regarding liquidity and the correctness of the measures concern the finance ministers of the Eurogroup. On this point Tsipras replied: “My goal is not to ask Germany for money to pay next month's salaries. This is not the institutional process of the EU. We are trying to avoid decisions and to find a common solution within the EU in order to be able to proceed with the collaboration of the institutions". At the end of this process, Tsipras added, "hopefully we will have a solution for Greece's liquidity".
Tsipras has not avoided the question of war reparations: "Today's Germany cannot be identified with the crimes of the Third Reich", he said, and Athens' requests for compensation are not "material" and in any case the question must not be connected to the negotiations on the Greek debt, but rather, "it must be tackled by both sides" as a "non-material but moral problem, to overcome fascism and Nazism forever and ensure that totalitarian regimes never return to power".
Merkel replied that the issue is "closed from both a legal and a political point of view", even if Germany is aware of the atrocities committed and the "dialogue" with Athens on the issue "will continue".
