The single currency continues to heal the wounds of the past and bring Europeans closer together.
Ekathimerini reports:
Eight in 10 Greeks believe the government should pursue Germany over the outstanding issue of Second World War reparations, according to a new opinion poll…. The German government has played down the issue but the Greek Foreign Ministry insisted last week that Athens does not consider the matter to have been settled. A Finance Ministry committee has been investigating whether Greece has a rightful claim to receive money from Germany but the results… have been kept secret. A recent report in To Vima suggested that Greece’s claim amounted to as much as 162 billion euros after interest had been added. This relates to reparations for infrastructure and personal damage as well as the repayment of a loan Greece was forced to provide to the Nazi regime.
Oh, there’s this too:
The March poll also found that more than 40 percent of Greeks think that Greece should leave the euro if it cannot improve the terms of its bailout agreement.
For now, I suspect that latter finding reflects bluster rather than reality, but interesting nonetheless…