An important visitor is expected in Athens tomorrow, reports the Hurriyet Daily News.
French President François Hollande will pay an official visit to the Greek capital after an invitation by the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras during the last Euro summit meeting. He is the Socialist leader of a country with the second strongest economy in the eurozone, but it is also a country under the threat of recession, struggling to maintain its financial credibility against a continuing crisis in the eurozone.
The Greek side had placed high hopes on the election of Hollande to the presidency, thinking that the Sarkozy-Merkel front could be broken and replaced by a Socialist president with a more lenient approach to the struggling south. But their expectations have been somewhat curbed by the apparent choice of Hollande not to come out openly against Germany, but rather try to find a way to cooperate.
“The French president is doing what he can, and he has seen that he could not do much,” commented the co-president of the Euro-Greens, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, just days ago, referring to the recent compromise achieved over the EU budget in which the French, after having obtained a crucial agreement on farm subsidies last November, did not put enough of a fight against the EU budget cuts proposed by the Germans and the British.
Still, France’s voice in the EU is considered important, especially for Europe’s suffering south, and it was interesting that in spite of the general pessimism and figures about the crisis in the eurozone, Hollande still struck an unexpected note of optimism, proclaiming the other day that “the crisis in the eurozone has come to its end, confidence has returned and the necessary steps towards a continuing solidarity among the members have been taken.”
A strong traditional ally for Greece, France is seen as a country that could, if it wanted, give a helping hand to the Samaras government in its attempts to persuade its creditors (the EU and the IMF) that some amendments should be made to the agreed memorandum to cope with the worst effects of the recession.
Read more of this report from the Hurriyet Daily News.