Berlin and Paris give Athens a last chance

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will have to wait until late September to find out if his diplomatic offensive to obtain a two year respite (from 2014 to 2016) for the return to a balanced budget has borne fruit. Neither German Chancellor Angela Merkel nor French President François Hollande, with whom Samaras met on August 24-25, made any commitment on the matter. Both said they wanted to wait for the publication of the progress report on structural reforms in Greece by the troika of creditors – the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

"The precise outcome of the Merkel-Samaras meeting will become concretely clear in the coming weeks," says commentator Polimilis Sifis in Greek daily To Vima –

it seems, however, that the Cold War climate which has been building lately in the German capital – and not only there, in fact – has died down. Samaras and his coalition partners seem to have a last chance to put the country on the path of exiting the crisis by ensuring the postponement of painful but necessary, fiscal adjustments while regaining their lost credibility.

Writing in another daily, To Ethnos, Giorgios Delastik is much less optimistic and notes that –

in German public opinion, the feeling towards Greece remaining in the eurozone is more and more hostile. A total of 61 per cent of those polled by German television ZDF said they hoped that Greece would be forced to leave the euro and only 31 per cent were favorable to its remaining in the eurozone.