January 11, 2019
Greece told German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday it had grounds to pursue a legal claim for billions of euros in reparations for the Nazi occupation of the country in World War Two.
Germany has dismissed Athens’ demands in the past, but the Greek president raised the issue anew with Merkel, who is on a two-day visit.
“As Greeks, we consider these demands legally active and (can be) judicially pursued and should be solved in the competent European forum, judicial forum,” Greek President Prokopis Pavlopoulos told Merkel during a short meeting.
World War Two reparations resurfaced as an emotional issue during Greece’s 2010-18 period of bailouts when austerity-hit Greeks, evoking past injustices, blamed their biggest creditor Germany for painful cuts associated with three international bailouts.
