Up close Angela Merkel is very
static. She stands immoveable, her eyes flashing this way and that. In Athens,
as she stood behind a lectern following talks with the Greek prime minister,
Antonis Samaras, the German chancellor was so restrained she hardly moved at
all. The Greek capital resembled Fort Knox – with riot police guarding her every
move, helicopters roaring overhead and sharp shooters installed on the rooftops
of buildings great and small – but Europe's most powerful
woman was having none of it. The angry chants and hoarse slogans of the
thousands of protesters who had also come out to greet her, eliciting one of the
biggest security operations ever put on by near-bankrupt Greece, belonged to another
world. As did the copious amounts of acrid teargas that wafted through the
Athens air.
In the hushed marble interior of the mansion that is the prime minister's
office, Merkel had a message and on this, her first visit to Greece since the
eruption of Europe's debt drama, it was a message she was determined to
convey.
"I have not come as a task-master," she said, her eyes elevated towards the
room's ornate sunlit ceiling as if focusing on some indefinable spot. "And nor
have I come as a teacher to give grades," she added, now focusing intently on
the marble floor. "I have come as a friend to listen and be informed." Three years into the crisis that began in Athens, Merkel also wanted to say
that she understood "a lot" was being demanded of Greece. She was not the
austerity warmonger that critics had painted her to be. "I come in full and firm
awareness of what the people of Greece are going through," she insisted. But,
she continued, Europe's weakest link was badly in need of change – and, if
reforms were not made now, they would come back "in a much more dramatic
way".
"I come from East Germany and I know how long
it takes to build reform," she said, almost by way of reassurance. "The road for
the people of Greece is very tough, very difficult, but they have put a good bit
of the path behind them. I want to say you are making progress!"... But even as the leader attempted not to sound like the matriarch in charge of
the family till, there is no denying that that is exactly what she is.
"Saying that she is not here to preach is bullshit," said one of the small
retinue of Berlin-based journalists who follow her every move. "She is here to
tell them exactly what to do." For the vast majority of Greeks, no person is more identified than Merkel
with the punitive measures that have ensnared the country in unprecedented
recession and record levels of poverty and unemployment.
As up to 300,000 took to the streets in a massive display of fury over the
savage cuts and tax increases that have brought growing numbers to the brink of
penury, it was the woman who is widely seen as the "architect of austerity" that
was firmly in their sights. "If I met her I would say if you had read Greek history you would have been
more aware," said Takis Stavropoulos, a bearded leftist who had converged with
thousands of other protesters on Syntagma square. "If she had done that she
would have known we would resist." No government has been in as difficult a place as the ruling coalition that
Samaras has lead since June. Although Merkel's surprise visit was seen as a
major coup, with officials hailing it as further proof of Berlin's new-found
willingness to keep Greece in the 17-member eurozone, there was also an
acceptance that the chancellor's six-hour presence in Athens, while rich in
symbolism, did not yield much in the way of substance. Merkel's Calvinist approach to dealing with Europe's crisis-hit southern
periphery may have softened, as the leader looks to re-election next year, but
as tiny Greece stares into the abyss with enough funds to survive only until the
end of next month, the message was clear: apply more draconian measures and the
rescue funds will keep pouring in. Echoing the complaint of German commentators,
Greek analysts agreed that the visit was long-overdue.
"It is hard not to see that this visit had a more important message for
Germany ahead of [next September's] general elections than it did for Greece,"
opined the prominent commentator Yiannis Pretenderis. The sad reality remained. After the biggest debt write-down in the history of
world finance and two EU-IMF-sponsored bailouts worth a mammoth €240bn, Greece
was still far from being saved and, even worse, was slipping inexorably into
social meltdown with its political arena becoming ever more radicalised.
The draconian €13.5bn package of spending cuts that is the price of further
aid could, many fear, push Greece further to the edge. Back at the heart of the government, untouched by the discord of everyday
life, the awkwardness of Greece's disharmonious relationship with its big
brother Germany was on full display in the awkwardness of the body language of
its prime minister. As Merkel, the pastor's daughter, spoke, Samaras, whose background is
privileged elite, Harvard and moneyed, looked on and winced.
"Greeks are a proud people," he said. "And our enemy is recession. But we are
not asking for favours. In my discussion with the German chancellor I pointed
out, however, that the Greek people are bleeding." As he spoke, Merkel remained absolutely static before pursing her lips and
looking away. Police fired teargas and stun grenades to hold back crowds chanting
anti-austerity slogans and waving Nazi flags while Merkel's host, Prime Minister
Antonis Samaras, welcomed her as a "friend" of Greece. On her first visit to Greece since the euro zone crisis erupted three years
ago, Merkel struck a conciliatory tone. She reaffirmed Berlin's commitment to keep the debt-crippled Greek state
inside Europe's single currency but offered Samaras no concrete relief ahead of
a new report on Greece's reform progress due by next month. "I have come here today in full knowledge that the period Greece is living
through right now is an extremely difficult one for the Greeks and many people
are suffering," Merkel said at a news conference with Samaras just a few hundred
yards from the mayhem on Syntagma Square, outside parliament.
"Precisely for that reason I want to say that much of the path is already
behind us," she added. (source guardian.uk)
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