Resolution of the Reparations Issue

ATHENS/BERLIN (Own report) – The Prime Minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras has announced a new initiative to force Germany to pay reparations and compensations to Greece. During a memorial service for the victims of a massacre committed by the German Wehrmacht in the western Greek village of Kommeno, on Tuesday, Tsipras declared that, should the Germany government persist in refusing to pay reparations, Athens will seek “through diplomatic channels – and if necessary at the judicial level – ” to take action against Berlin. In early September, the Greek parliament is scheduled to discuss a recently completed report quantifying the German reparations debt at 269 billion Euros. German government assertions that the reparations issue has been “closed” are unfounded. In fact, payment of the binding 1946 reparations sum, recognized by the London Debt Agreement of February 1953, had been deferred, but not annulled. Only a fraction of it has been paid. As confirmed by Horst Teltschik, former advisor to Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Bonn had sought to evade its reparations obligations by explicitly not qualifying the 2 + 4 Treaty a “Peace Treaty.” It had been feared that, with a peace treaty, suddenly “reparations demands from over 50 countries would land on the table,” Teltschik explained.

Particularly Close to Germany

Do you still question who runs Europe? Guess who’s back.

BERLIN/BRUSSELS (Own report) – With Jean-Claude Juncker, Germany will have a politician as President of the EU Commission, who has always been a close ally. Juncker says that “since his earliest youth,” he has “always felt particularly close” to Germany, an affinity that “grew even stronger” in later years. The former prime minister of Luxemburg is seen as former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s protégé and as the “mediator” in Germany’s interests, wherein he had also won France over to accept Germany’s standpoint on an economic and monetary union. The transition from the Barroso cabinet to that of Juncker will be coordinated by the German national, Martin Selmayr, who had previously been employed as cabinet director of the EU Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding, (Luxemburg) and was considered to “actually be the Commissioner of Justice.” He is also considered to become cabinet director of Juncker’s office as President of the Commission. Germans are at decisive posts on the Council of Ministers as well as in the European Parliament, for example as parliamentary group whips, and the German national, Martin Schulz is being considered for the next presidency of the parliament. An influential German journal commented the concentration of Germans at the leadership level of the EU’s bureaucracy with “The EU speaks German.”