(Newswire.net — March 25, 2015) — Greece has about two weeks from declaring bankruptcy. As the pressure grew to meet its creditors demand, Greek leftwing Prime Minister Alexi Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a meeting in Berlin. In a press conference on Monday night, they stated that progress was made, though they didn’t reach an agreement.
Then, Greek Prime Minister Tsipras, standing next to Merkel, shocked everyone by demanding war reparations over Nazi atrocities in Greece. In the history of united Germany, no one has ever done that.
“It’s not a material matter, it’s a moral issue,” said Tsipras, unusually insisting on raising the ‘shadows of the past’, the Guardian reported.
Chancellor Merkel didn’t looked surprised, but her stone face didn’t hide that she was uncomfortable and irritated, some media reported.
“In the view of the German government, the issue of reparations is politically and legally closed,” she said.
One of the ‘wining’ promises Tsipras made during the election was to abolish ‘Merkelism’ referring to pressure Greece has by its creditors to return €240bn ($262.8bn) in bailout loans over the past five years. Tsiprass said it wasn’t Greece’s fault, but pointed out that the debt slavery his country was in so deeply is due to the high level of corruption he pledged to eradicate.
In a press conference, Tsipras didn’t disclose much about corrupted companies, however, he mentioned one – the German giant Siemens. Though he didn’t say it explicitly, the idea behind mentioning Siemens was to state that a great deal of the money Germany loaned Greece actually went back to Germany through German companies operating in Greece, while the debt remains the sole responsibility of Greece.
It was not clear what progress was made at the meeting, but when asked if she had reached any agreements with Tsipras, Merkel avoided the question. She said she is only one of 19 Eurozone national leaders.
Tsipras was believed to have told the German leader that without the release of more funds, €7.2bn to be exact, which are being held up because he has failed to produce a coherent policy package, Greece will face bankruptcy, though he said his government inherited the problem.
Merkel, however, said that there can be no further release of loans until the Greeks draw up a credible menu of fiscal and structural reforms and prove they are serious about acting on them, the Guardian reported. In his two months in office, Tsipras has failed to do this, the Guardian concluded, adding that the creditors think Tsipras is wasting everyone’s time.