As Greece sank into the mother of all debt crises in 2010, the German tabloid Bild ran a story under the headline: “Sell your islands, you bankrupt Greeks! And sell the Acropolis, too!”One former Greek government minister never forgot the newspaper’s impertinent advice. Like a reincarnation of Nemesis, the ancient Greek goddess, Panagiotis Lafazanis last week recommended — in an interview with Bild, no less — that Germany should consider selling an island or two to overcome a budgetary emergency of its own.
This crisis erupted on November 15, when Germany’s constitutional court ruled that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government had broken the law by trying to use €60bn of unspent pandemic funds for fighting climate change and modernising industry. As a result of the court’s decision, Germany’s budget plans for this year and 2024 are in chaos.
Lafazanis, who was a member of Greece’s Stalinist communist party before he joined the radical leftist Syriza movement, served as energy minister in the Syriza-led government that came to power in 2015. He used his interview with Bild to pour salt on Germany’s wounds like olive oil on a Greek salad.