German Chancellor Angela Merkel will make her first visit to Greece since the eurozone debt crisis erupted, in a show of support for Athens after it said it would run out of money at the end of November without fresh international aid.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras hailed the trip as a positive development at a time when his country is locked in negotiations with eurozone and IMF creditors who are holding back some €31.5 billion in urgently needed loans. "The key is liquidity. That is why the next credit tranche is so important for us", Samaras said. Asked how long Greece could manage without it, he said: "Until the end of November. Then the coffers are empty".
The visit appears to signal that Europe's most powerful leader has decided it is essential to keep Greece in the single currency area despite its repeated failure to meet fiscal targets and economic reform commitments under two bailout programmes.
Merkel has been vilified in some Greek media as dictating devastating austerity to Greece. Greek labour unions announced a work stoppage and a protest rally outside parliament during Merkel's visit, and a far-right anti-bailout party, the Independent Greeks, will demonstrate at the German embassy "to express in front of Chancellor Angela Merkel our opposition to Greece becoming a German protectorate".
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