A German former MP,
now special envoy for Athens, has said that Greece could need 70 years to clear
its debts. He also suggested that Germany could pay for a special emergency
bank, as reparations for World War II.
Speaking to the
"Rheinische Post" newspaper, Chatzimarkakis, who was a member of the
European Parliament from 2004 to 2014, also suggested that Germany could
contribute to setting up a special reconstruction bank in Greece, as a form of
reparations for the Second World War.
Chatzimarkakis said
the issue had been "very skillfully swept under the carpet" by the
government in Berlin since 1949. He said such a facility could be modeled on
Germany's "Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau" (literally "credit
facility for reconstruction"), or "KfW," which was established
in the aftermath of the Second World War. Its successor is now a German-government
owned development bank.
The German government
has rejected renewed calls for reparations in the past, including from new
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, saying that the reparation issue was
settled "at the latest" by a pre-reunification agreement in 1990.
Greece files reform plans, Eurogroup meeting next
Late on Friday, Greek
Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis sent an 11-page letter to Eurogroup chief
Jeroen Dijsselbloem, outlining the Syriza government's reform proposals. On
Monday, the finance ministers from the 19 eurozone countries are scheduled to
meet to discuss the paper.
Even before the talks,
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the German weekly Welt
am Sonntag that "the European Commission takes the position that there
will never be a Grexit," or Greek exit from the eurozone.
"No one among
those politically responsible in Europe is working for Greece to leave the
eurozone," he said in remarks the paper released ahead of publication.
"The country is and will remain a member of the currency union."
Varoufakis' proposals
included activating a "Fiscal Council," envisaged as an independent
watchdog to monitor government fiscal policy. Established in theory by Greece's
previous government last June, the letter said that the Council "was never
activated in practice and, to this date, remains inoperative, lacking management
or staff."
The letter also
proposed installment schemes designed to motivate people to pay back-taxes,
"improvements in the area of budget preparation," generating extra
tax revenue through licensing fees for online gaming and betting, and the
digitization of state records to save civil service working hours.
The introduction of
emergency relief to address the "humanitarian crisis" in Greece,
providing help for buying food and electricity, for instance, also made the
seven-point proposal. Finally, the government suggested employing ordinary
people as unofficial tax watchdogs. Under the scheme, they would pose as
customers while "wired" for audio, video, or both, gathering evidence
that would be useful to Greece's tax authorities. The letter conceded that of
the roughly 76 billion euros ($82.5 billion) still owed in taxes to Athens,
only around 8.9 billion was likely to prove collectable.
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