Tsipras on first trip to Germany amid tense relations
BERLIN (AP) — Alexis Tsipras is visiting Germany for the first time since becoming Greece's prime minister on Monday, meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel as his debt-ridden country and its key creditor seek to halt a downward spiral in relations.
Tsipras' visit comes after Merkel and other European leaders last week told Tsipras to come up soon with budget cuts and tax increases that would enable him to get urgently needed bailout money.
Merkel has downplayed chances of Tsipras producing those measures when they meet, saying that "it is not the place for any lists with proposed reforms to be submitted" and they must go to Greece's international debt inspectors, not to Germany.
Tsipras' first weeks in office have been marked by tensions over the two governments' contrasting approaches to the debt crisis and Athens' revival of calls for World War II reparations from Berlin. Tsipras' party won January elections after campaigning against the spending cuts favored by Germany.
German officials have complained about their Greek counterparts making commitments and then publicly casting doubt on them, but also insist the debt spat isn't a bilateral matter between the two countries.
German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told ARD television Sunday he hopes for a "new beginning" in relations.
"The Greek government must clearly recognize that the rest of Europe, Germany too, wants to help but that we cannot do that without something in return, without fair agreements on the necessary reforms," he said — though he added that "social hardship is huge" in Greece and must be addressed.
Merkel's governing coalition insists talk of wartime reparations has no place in discussions of Greece's debt troubles.
German officials say the matter was resolved through previous payments and agreements.
"The reparations demands were another distraction from Greece to divert attention from their own failings," Michael Grosse-Broemer, the parliamentary chief whip of Merkel's conservative bloc, told Deutschlandradio.