It was announced today that the Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will meet his German counterpart Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Friday the 22nd of November. The two European leaders will be meeting for the first time since the German elections in September, when Mrs. Merkel’s CDU party came first and is in negotiations with the SPD party to form a coalition government.
The meeting is part of the Greek PM’s strategy of “political negotiation” with the political supervisors of the troika representatives. The two leaders will have the opportunity to discuss the progress of the Greek program in-person, which will allow Mr. Samaras to estimate the intentions of the German side.
Aside from presenting positive and optimistic estimations on the economy and the overall progress of the Greek program, Mr. Samaras will focus on the need to preserve the fragile political and social stability provided by his administration.
The Greek Prime Minister will be in Berlin a day earlier, on Thursday the 21st of November, for the annual “Leader’s Dialogue” event organized by the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, where he will be one of the main speakers. Also invited to the meeting are Italian PM Enrico Leta, ECB President Mario Draghi and the Deutsche Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann.
Mr. Samaras is expected to reiterate his position that further across-the-board measures, such as wage and pension cuts and an increase of taxes, are unacceptable. Instead, Mr. Samaras favors the speedy implementation of structural changes.
