Greek parliament demands Berlin pays WWII reparations
Greek lawmakers have officially endorsed a diplomatic offensive to have Germany pay reparations over the WWII occupation of Greece. Athens is due to raise the issue with Berlin, where the matter is seen as long settled.
A large majority of Greek lawmakers supported giving a mandate to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to seek reparations from Germany. The Wednesday vote marks the first official parliamentary decision on the Tsipras 2015 campaign pledge to raise the emotionally charged issue.
The government can now take "every appropriate legal and diplomatic action to satisfy Greece's demands."
[...]
Germany's official position is that all reparation issues were settled decades ago. In 1960, Greece signed off on a deal in which West Germany agreed to pay 115 million deutschmarks as compensation.
Commenting on the Wednesday vote, Germany's government spokesman Steffen Seibert acknowledged Germany's responsibility for the occupation.
"We are, and I hope you can believe us, aware of our historic responsibility," he added.
However, he also said that the issue of reparations had been "conclusively settled, both legally and politically."
Full Article on
Deutsche Welle (English)Honestly, I think this is a political stunt. We shall never forget any war crimes that have been committed by anyone, but demanding a ridiculous sum from today's German taxpayers, who are born decades after WWII, is not the way to deal with this.
