http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\05\08\story_8-5-2010_pg4_9


PARIS: France and Germany, while publicly urging Greece to make harsh public spending cuts, bullied its government to confirm billions of
euros in arms deals, a leading Euro-MP alleged Friday.

Franco-German lawmaker Daniel Cohn-Bendit said that Paris and Berlin are seeking to
force Prime Minister George Papandreou to spend Greece’s scarce cash on
submarines, a fleet of warships, helicopters and war planes.

“I met Mr Papandreou last week. I was in Athens. I’ve known him for a long
time,” Cohn-Bendit told reporters, accusing Germany’s Chancellor Angela
Merkel and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy of blackmailing his
friend. Cohn-Bendit accused France and Germany of making their
contributions to an IMF-led rescue package for the debt-ridden Greek
economy contingent on Athens honouring massive arms deals signed by
Papandreou’s predecessor. “It’s incredible the way the Merkels and
Sarkozys of this world treat a Greek prime minister,” he declared,
adding that Papandreou had recently met Sarkozy and French Prime
Minister Francois Fillon in Paris. “Mr Fillon and Mr Sarkozy told Mr
Papandreou: ‘We’re going to raise the money to help you, but you are
going to have to continue to pay the arms contracts that we have with
you’,” Cohn-Bendit said.

“In the past three months we have forced Greece to confirm several billion dollars in arms contracts.
French frigates that the Greeks will have to buy for 2.5 billion euros.
Helicopters, planes, German submarines.”

Cohn-Bendit, a former leader of the 1968 student revolt in Paris, is leader of the Green group in the European parliament. afp