Yesterday's
threat by Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos of the Independent Greeks to
'flood' Europe with refugees including
potential IS members has arguably brought German-Greek relations to a new low.
Pawel Swidlicki, Policy Analyst
http://openeurope.org.uk/blog/new-low-german-greek-relations/
9 March
2015
Since it
came to power, the SYRIZA-Independent Greeks coalition has effectively written
the textbook of how not to negotiate in Europe .
Irrespective of whether one agrees with them on substance, they spend too much
political capital on pointless posturing and divisive rhetoric. However,
despite the lack of success so far, it appears that some in Athens
At a
meeting of Independent Greeks MPs yesterday, party leader and Defence Minister
Panos Kammenos argued that “If they hit out at Greece
then they should know that the migrants will get [travel] papers and go to Berlin Greece
Given the
recent spate of Islamist terror attacks in Europe and the sensitive debate
about immigration and Islam in Germany, these comments will not exactly make it
easier for Berlin to sell ‘European solidarity’ to increasingly sceptical
German voters.
Coming on
top of Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’ interview with Italian daily
Corriere della Sera in which he suggested that there could be a referendum if
Greek proposals on debt restructuring and investment were rejected by other
Eurozone countries – which would, despite his protests to the contrary, be a de
facto referendum on euro membership – this only reinforces the perception that
the new Greek government is amateurish and lacks a coherent strategy.
Ironically,
Kammenos’ comments came to light just as his German counterpart Ursula von der
Leyen told Deutschlandfunk that “a European army is the future”. Good luck with
that…
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