Hollande Visits Greece to Show Support for Recovery Efforts
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
Published: February 19, 2013
NEW YORK TIMES
ATHENS — During a quick visit to the Greek capital on Tuesday, President François Hollande of France expressed support for Greece’s efforts to revive its economy and called on French companies to invest in the debt-racked country. He also indicated France’s interest in working with Greece to exploit oil and natural gas reserves in the Aegean Sea, a likely point of contention with neighboring Turkey.
Bertrand Langlois/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. Hollande signaled France’s interest in working
with Greece to exploit oil and natural gas reserves in the Aegean Sea.
“Our message is one of friendship, support, trust and growth” for
Greece, Mr. Hollande said after talks with Prime Minister Antonis
Samaras. “No European people have undergone such a test, so we must
stand by Greece’s side.”
Mr. Hollande, a socialist who came to power last spring on a pledge to
increase growth to counteract deepening austerity in Europe, emphasized
the importance of foreign investment to bolster Greece, which is in its
sixth year of recession. Greek unemployment has risen to 27 percent,
climbing above 60 percent for young people.
Mr. Hollande said he would push French companies to “actively support
investments” and to participate in bids for the privatization of
Greece’s state water and rail companies as well as other projects.
“I will speak to them this evening,” he said, before further talks with
Mr. Samaras and his partners in Greece’s coalition government that were
to conclude his roughly six-hour visit.
Mr. Samaras, for his part, heralded “a new chapter” in bilateral ties,
describing the French leader’s visit as “a vote of confidence that
proved Greece is no longer the weak link of Europe.”
He said talks on possible cooperation focused on sectors including the
military, construction and, chiefly, energy, noting that Greece aimed to
become an “energy hub in the Aegean.”
A plan to cooperate on energy projects is to be broached during Mr.
Samaras’ visit next month to Turkey, which objects to Greece’s
prospecting for oil and gas in the Aegean until the two countries
resolve a longstanding dispute regarding the delineation of the
countries’ territorial waters and the continental shelf.
Mr. Hollande indicated that energy was a potential area of mutual
business opportunity. “If France is able to commonly exploit hydrocarbon
reserves with Greece, it will do so,” he said.
The French president added that he was “not here to sell arms,” an
apparent response to speculation about the possible lease or sale of
frigates to Greece. He added that he and Mr. Samaras had signed a deal
to bolster tourism, which accounts for a fifth of Greece’s dwindling
gross domestic product.
Recession is a Europe-wide problem, not particular to Greece, Mr.
Hollande added, noting that France would fall short of its target of 0.8
percent growth for 2013.
Although security was tight on Tuesday, with police helicopters circling
over central Athens, the French leader’s visit did not involve the
draconian measures that accompanied the arrival last October of
Chancellor Angela Merkel: Germany is widely seen by Greeks as having
imposed a series of austerity measures including wage and pension cuts.
Still, tension in Greece is high ahead of the anticipated return to
Athens next week by inspectors from the so-called troika — the European
Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central
Bank.
Thousands of Greek workers were poised to walk off the job Wednesday in
the first general strike of the year, protesting salary cuts and plans
for selling state-owned assets.
Mr. Samaras’s government has insisted on the need to attract foreign
investments to raise revenue, which fell 7 percent short of the budget
target last month. But unions and opposition parties oppose further
foreign involvement. Greece has agreed to two bailouts worth a total of
€240 billion in exchange for implementing austerity measures that have
lopped 25 percent off its G.D.P. since the crisis erupted three years
ago.
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