The first appearance in Greece of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble since the country’s crushing economic crisis began three years brought out all the luminaries in the business and banking world, who flocked to the Hilton to hear him talk.
There was no applause when he entered but the audience of 300 quickly warmed to the man that working-class, poor and elderly Greeks blame for being the architect of austerity that has ruined many of their lives.
The business elite loved his idea of consolidating the public sector and firing workers as it did with reducing the minimum wage, scrapping collective bargaining and taking away employee rights.
Security was tight and Schaeuble directed what kind of photos could be taken of him, while the streets of central Athens were cordoned off all day in measures not even given to visiting heads of state.
Among the representatives of the Greek economic life that Schäuble had the chance to meet in private was the CEO of the National Bank of Greece, Alexandros Tourkolias, Dimitris Mantzounis of Alpha Bank and Christos Megalou of Eurobank, whose bank is relentlessly hounding Greeks unable to pay their loans because of pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions to pay them in full.
During the closed preliminary meeting held in a private space in the Hilton Athens Hotel, Schäeuble and the President of KfW and of the World Savings Bank Institute, who accompanied him, had the chance to talk with the President of the Greek-German Chamber Michalis Maillis about the liquidity problems of the Greek banking system.
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