Bid to modernise Greek economy ‘paying off’

Greece’s efforts to modernise the economy with support from Germany are beginning to pay off at a local level two years after joint projects were first begun, according to Angela Merkel’s special envoy to the country.

Hans-Joachim Fuchtel, an MP with the German chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union party, was handed the post in 2011.

He said Greek initiatives are benefiting from a “treasure trove” of German industrial and administrative expertise that’s spawned projects from tourism to exporting textiles and managing waste.

“Greece has come a huge step forward,” Mr Fuchtel, 61, who has visited the country about a dozen times in his post, said in an interview in Berlin yesterday. All the same, “economic recovery needs to be speeded up.”

A favourable report card from Mr Fuchtel lends credence to Ms Merkel’s insistence on an overhaul of the Greek economy in return for aid and may help her make the case for any fresh measures needed to help the country. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said on Tuesday that Greece will need a new aid package.

Mr Fuchtel, who accompanied Ms Merkel to Athens in November and joined Mr Schäuble on his trip to Greece last month, said he has little influence over macro-economic policy in Greece, including asset sales that are behind schedule. He was hired to signal German solidarity with Greece’s fiscal and economic woes.

The German-Greek Group led by Mr Fuchtel, who combines the work with a post in Berlin as a deputy labour minister, targets local Greek mayors as project managers and is active in areas including training young Greeks in Germany and developing exports.

Helped by German know-how in cornering foreign sales, Greek farmers may export 20% more produce this year, according to Mr Fuchtel.

Greek olive farmers are being encouraged to add value by processing the fruit locally rather than selling it to foreign producers and, after a 10-year absence, Greece has with German encouragement returned to the annual “Green Week” agricultural show in Berlin, the world’s largest.

The group is also helping Greek textile producers that employ 30,000 to export products to Europe.

While working for Ms Merkel directly, the chancellor gives her Greece adviser “a lot of free rein” and does not demand regular report on the micro-level programs he supervises, said Mr Fuchtel, a trained attorney.

He said he has to battle Greek bureaucracy and frustration amid a sixth year of recession and a jobless tally that rose to a record 27.6% in May.

Greek MPs, faced with approving unprecedented economic reform and fiscal bills, should work more closely with their German counterparts after next month’s federal election, said Mr Fuchtel, who is himself seeking re-election.

“Lawmakers need to be convinced that what they’re doing is right.

“Just as in Germany, lawmakers need the factual background to make decisions.”

Success stories about Greece are few and far between and often go unreported in Germany, according to Mr Fuchtel.

“I go about my work thinking the glass is always half full, never half empty.”

Bloomberg