P
02/13/2012
ΠΗΓΗ: SPIEGEL
μεταφρασμένο (σχεδόν στο σύνολό του) βρίσκεται στο CYNICAL
It would have been hard for German Chancellor Angela Merkel to find a more appropriate setting from which to promote her policies for Greece. She is sitting in a wide leather chair in Berlin's Neues Museum, home to Egyptian treasures and classical antiquities. The ancient columns towering behind her lend the scene an Acropolis-like air.
It's Tuesday of last week, and Merkel has been invited by a foundation to join in a discussion on the future of Europe. A young woman stands up and identifies herself as a foreign student studying in Germany and a "despairing representative of a younger Greek generation." She says that, of course, she would like to return to her home country after completing her studies. "But whenever I make inquiries about work in Athens," she says, "I'm only offered jobs in Germany."
Merkel nods. The situation in Greece is "extremely difficult," she says, adding that she cannot imagine a currency union without the highly indebted nation. "I want Greece to keep the euro," she says. And then, unasked and unambiguously, she provides something akin to a letter of guarantee for the Greeks. "I would not participate in pushing Greece out of the euro," she says. "That would have unforeseeable consequences."