Merkel willing to discuss Greek plea for time

German chancellor Angela Merkel signalled she is willing to discuss a Greek request for more time to meet the terms of its international rescue, leaving the door open to potential concessions.

Responding to a reporter’s question in the Moldovan capital Chisinau yesterday, Merkel declined to discuss the request publicly before meeting with Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras in Berlin tomorrow, saying she would “have the opportunity to communicate directly” with him then.

“We won’t find solutions on Friday,” Merkel said, reiterating that leaders must await a report being drawn up by the troika of the ECB, the European Commission and the IMF.

“We will wait for the troika’s report and then we’ll take decisions,” she said.

Merkel’s comments suggest a thaw in relations between Germany and Greece after Greek publications drew Nazi- era comparisons with its treatment during the debt crisis and German newspaper Bild called for Greece to be expelled from the euro.

German officials have said in recent days that concessions are possible for Greece so long as Samaras shows a willingness to meet the main targets set before a meeting in Athens with Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the group of euro-area finance ministers. Juncker is also meeting with Greek finance minister Yannis Stournaras.

As well as granting more time, options for concessions to Greece include front-loading aid payments, lowering the interest rate or extending maturities on loans and pushing for a second debt writedown — this time focusing on bonds held by public institutions, notably the ECB.

Samaras, seeking to persuade Europe’s policy makers to continue the aid payments needed to keep Greece in the euro, travels to Paris on Saturday for talks with French president François Hollande. Hollande is due in Berlin today to meet with Merkel.

Hollande “will be watchful to make sure the integrity of the eurozone is maintained” in his talks with Merkel, French government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem told reporters in Paris yesterday.

Samaras told Bild his government is making progress carrying out “structural reforms” and selling state assets.

Greece stands by its commitments even after the economy contracted by a fifth over the past three years, the standard of living dropped by a third, pensioners lost a fifth of their incomes and half the country’s youth is unemployed, he said.

Abandoning Greece now would increase uncertainty and the vulnerability of the other euro states and lead to dramatic consequences in financial markets, he said.

Germany, France and all other countries “must keep to their commitments in the EU”, said Merkel. “And of course that’s also what we mean when we talk about Greece.

“What Europe needs to be taken seriously as a partner in the world is credibility.”

Bloomberg