Greece's finance minister thinks a speech in Greece by Angela Merkel is the answer to its debt crisis
Thursday, the IMF agreed to allow Greece to delay a payment due Friday until later this month.
Almost simultaneous with that news being released, Greece's finance minster, Yanis Varoufakis, tweeted out his latest post at the opinion site Project Syndicate. He writes:
On September 6, 1946 US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes traveled to Stuttgart to deliver his historic "Speech of Hope." Byrnes' address marked America's post-war change of heart vis-à-vis Germany and gave a fallen nation a chance to imagine recovery, growth, and a return to normalcy. Seven decades later, it is my country, Greece, that needs such a chance.
At this point, Greece needs hope, he argues. And who should deliver that hope? Germany's Chancellor.
In my mind, the speaker should be German Chancellor Angela Merkel, addressing an audience in Athens or Thessaloniki or any Greek city of her choice. She could use the opportunity to hint at a new approach to European integration, one that starts in the country that has suffered the most, a victim both of the eurozone's faulty monetary design and of its society's own failings.
Hope was a force for good in post-war Europe, and it can be a force for positive transformation now. A speech by Germany's leader in a Greek city could go a long way toward delivering it.
Greece does not appear to be substantially closer to a deal than it has been in recent weeks.