The German Chancellor in Athens amidst demonstrations: a charade?

 So Athens hits the headlines, yesterday!

The Prime Minister ("Chancellor") of Germany, Ms Angela Merkel, visited Athens as the first stop of her rould of struggling euro-economies.


The lady affirmed her personal and official support for all Greece's efforts and offered kudos to the government for its efforts (she meant future efforts, no doubt; nothing has been done yet). So, why visit Athens? Probably to make a PR point to the other europartners and the world at large.

Of course there were demonstrations: the usual ubiquitous and vociferous civil servants' union (adedy) and the national laborers union (gsee) flexing their muscles. All of a few hundred people gathered to protest.

Merkel left, as requested, but the debt remains.

Of course the media and union noises and good at focusing the Public's attention to the bad German woman rather than the the good fellas running the country for the past 30 years.

The good fellas are all Greek.
Merkel is German, and a bad German makes better copy.
The Germans are also not known for their sense of humor making them excellent fall guys too. As a British comedian once said (paraphrasing), "Iran has one comedian -- that's 3 more than in Germany!".

The rest of the population seethed quietly and tried to go on with their lives as best they could. Which was not very good as security measures bordered on the ridiculous in Athens (main streets cut off to all traffic including pedestrians, police flown in from other cities to guard the lady, etc)


Germany, that foots the largest part of Greece's bail-out bill, is the country responsible for the second world war and a number of other things that include Porsche and Mercedes autos particularly popular in Greece of late. It is also seen as the reason behind the austerity measures imposed on everyone. So Germany is a good scapegoat.
Germany also owes Greece a loan, contracted (by force) during the occupation in 1943. That should cover part of the country's debt, were the country's politicians to ask for it. Amazingly, no one has.
But then, Greece's politicians are known to sign documents in the name of their country, without even reading said documents.

The absurd issue ion all of this shenanigan  is that Greece contracted and created its debt all by itself. Of course its erstwhile, now dead, socialist politician Mr A. Papandreou helped increase debt by allegedly  bestowing loan money to his cronies and by increasing Greece's overall Public Sector payroll, by a factor of 2. Aslo EU support funds went, purportedly, to cover deficits and party needs. For sure, little money went to infrastructure; and much -- i.e. the majority it is said -- was spent on private construction and consumer products and services.

So it's not really the Germans' fault that Greece still has not balanced its budget imbalances -- even after all the money and the austerity.

Greek governments doggedly insist on keeping their huge contingent of administrators intact (twice the percentage of the EU average which includes Greece).
The Greek parliamentarians have two highly paid consultants, eac bringing the de facto Parliamentto 900 people.

Not even the US President has it so good!