MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Germany waiting for Tsipras government move: Greece must stick to its commitments

Tsipras in an open letter to German voters in the business newspaper Handelsblatt, called German policies “fiscal water-boarding.”

Greece’s election has sent shockwaves throughout Europe and especially Germany. The Euro zone’s biggest economy and paymaster has reluctantly footed a big bill for bailing out Greece and other euro members, extending financial aid in return for strict and unpopular austerity measures.

 The voters who backed Syriza, the big winners in Sunday's Greek election, responded to the party’s demonization of Germany and its chancellor, Angela Merkel. Syriza wants to end what it describes as German-imposed austerity and restructure the debt that Greece owes to international lenders following a series of rescues.

In the run-up to Sunday's vote, Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras and next Prime Minister even wrote an open letter to German voters in the business newspaper Handelsblatt, saying that the loans will never be repaid and calling German policies “fiscal water-boarding.” He added:

“The insistence in these dead-end policies, and in the denial of simple arithmetic, costs the German taxpayer dearly while, at once, condemning to a proud European nation to permanent indignity”.

To make matters worse, Syriza surprised many by apparently forming a coalition with the rightwing Independent Greeks, which has nothing in common except a pathological opposition to the terms of Greece’s bail-out. For example, the Independent Greeks have strong links with the Greek Orthodox Church; Tsipras is agnostic.

Although she hasn’t yet commented herself, a spokesperson for Merkel reiterated the chancellor’s defense of her policies. The country’s economic recovery requires “sticking to its previous commitments,” the chancellor's spokesperson said.

Elmar Brok, a member of the European Parliament for Merkel’s CDU party who sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, rejected the idea of writing down Greece's debt. He added, as German politicians often do, that Greeks made their bed and must lie in it: “I know of no country in Europe in which ordinary citizens have been so deceived by the political and economic class.”

“The Greeks have the right to vote for whom they want,” said Hans-Peter Friedrich of the CSU, a sister party of the CDU. “We have the right to no longer finance Greek debt. The Greeks must now pay the consequences and cannot saddle German taxpayers with them.”

Jens Weidmann, president of Germany’s central bank, said that debt relief would only grant Greece “a short pause for breath.” He added: “I hope the new government won’t call into question what is expected and what has already been achieved.”

But others not wedded to the political orthodoxy welcomed the news. Bernd Riexinger, one of the leaders of the German left wing party Die Linke, said that Syriza's victory “means the beginning of a new politics not just in Greece but in the rest of Europe.” In a tweet, he hailed Syriza’s “historic victory” as a rejection of “Merkel’s destruction”: