Olaf Scholz's visit to Athens and the Greek-German relationship
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who arrived in Athens on Wednesday evening, kicked off his visit to Greece on Thursday morning with a visit to the Acropolis with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Scholz is the first German chancellor to visit Greece in the post-Merkel era. This visit comes one year after former Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Athens, and the dynamics are drastically different as the war in Ukraine is impacting Europe’s understanding of the world. Dr. George Tzogopoulos joins Thanos Davelis to discuss the broader significance of this visit, the opportunities it presents for Greece and Germany to turn a new page in their relationship, and its potential to impact broader questions about Europe’s trajectory.
Dr. George Tzogopoulos is a lecturer at the European Institute of Nice (CIFE), and senior fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Ramat Gan, Israel.
Read Giorgos Tzogopoulos’s latest piece in Kathimerini: German chancellor’s visit to Greece
You can read the articles we discuss on our podcast here:
Scholz visit a chance to rectify ties
Turkish doctor detained for proposing chemical weapons probe