Germany Owes Greece

Typical sense of entitlement that helped Greece get into this mess. He neglects to mention the EU grants, mostly from Germany, to help Greece build it's infrastructure. I remember driving across the country with my parents using the old roads in the early 1980s, and it was terrible. Small winding roads up mountains, full of traffic and little crosses on the road indicating a fatal accident. Now it's all high-tech super free ways cutting right through mountains. You think Greece paid for any of that? It was mostly Germany.
 
Well, it is not just EU grants. More than 2 million Germans travel to Greece every year and since Germany is a relatively wealthy country they spend unusually large amounts of money compared to tourists from many other countries.

There is a reason why tourism accounts for as much as 25% of Greece´s gross demestic product. Financially, British and German tourists play a very important role for the Greek economy.

I think it is safe to say that a big public debate about late war reparations and a potential rise of anti-German sentiments would have adverse effects on tourism and greatly hurt the one part of the Greek economy that has successfully and consistently attracted foreign clients and investors. I am not sure if a one-time payoff would be able to compensate the loss of billions of economic revenue year after year after year ... Going by the numbers, Germans appear to like Greece a lot. Giving them any reason to travel elsewhere instead could be a very costly mistake.
 
Very good point JoBBo. It's very stupid to bite the hand that feeds you. And most Greeks understand this very well, believe me. In many parts of Greece the street signs are in Greek and German, along with English as well. In fact I would say since WW2, Germany is perhaps Greece's best friend. I hope that relationship isn't ruined by this nonsense.
 
Interesting, but not likely to solve Greece's problems today. Greece's daily problems include a drastic reduction in tourism. Traditionally the bulk of Greece's tourism was made up of Germans. Now, because of all the anti-German BS going on in Greece (expect lots of booing at the Greece vs Germany game today), they are finding other places to go, such as Turkey or Italy. In the end, Greeks are shooting themselves in the foot (again). If there is something to this WW2 reparations, now is probably the worst time to bring it up.
 
Glaucus said:
Now, because of all the anti-German BS going on in Greece (expect lots of booing at the Greece vs Germany game today)
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Which would be salved pretty quickly if the Germans said - oops - you're right. Debt's cancelled.
If there is something to this WW2 reparations, now is probably the worst time to bring it up.
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Be a bad time to bring it up if the Germans then said - sure, but so what, you pay us back first. It'd be a perfect time to bring it up if they were willing to pay up.
 
The problem is that Germany claims they already paid it, so it's not highly probable that Germany is gonna hand over that kind of cash any time soon.

At any rate, with a 4-2 victory over Greece today, my friend in Berlin put it well: It's official, we can never go to greece again... Poor german tourists!

More like: poor Greek resorts.
 
Glaucus said:
(expect lots of booing at the Greece vs Germany game today)
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Never happened to any appreciable level. At least not audibly on my TV.
The most prominent chanting/singing, as seems to have been the case for most games in this tournie, was that god-awful version of Seven Nation Army.
 
Robert said:
Never happened to any appreciable level. At least not audibly on my TV.
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I haven't heard any of that either, but they tend to sanitize that sort of thing on TV. Perhaps the Greek football hooligans couldn't afford the trip. At any rate, I get a constant stream of anti-German posts on my Facebook page from certain Greeks on me friends list. It's getting annoying.
 
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