German MEP switches sights to wooing Greece
(BERLIN) - German MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis says he's so frustrated watching Greece struggle under austerity measures championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel that he's turning his back on his home country.
Instead, the 47-year-old plans to run for a European parliamentary seat in May's elections in Greece, the nation his father left in the 1960s to settle in Germany's Ruhr industrial heartland.
"I've always felt torn between the two but it irritates me that the German side of my heart is feeling so ashamed," he told AFP.
"The patient (Greece) was prescribed the absolutely wrong treatment and we are now shirking our responsibility because it's not back on its feet again," said Chatzimarkakis, who has dual nationality.
He accuses Berlin of having "dictated" the terms of the international bailouts that Greece has received over the last four years, which have entailed swingeing cutbacks and reforms which have hit its citizens hard.
Having grown up in Duisburg and studied in Bonn, Chatzimarkakis chose a career in politics as a member of the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) in the western region of Saarland.
After a decade of representing the party, junior partner in Merkel's previous centre-right coalition, in the European Parliament, he has now handed in his FDP membership card.
On May 25, he will instead stand as a candidate for the Greek European Citizens, a party he established in January in Athens, which, he says, aims to "recycle certain values of ancient Greece".
- 'Cheaters in Euro Family' -
Despite being in the FDP's federal leadership until 2011, his dissatisfaction with the party harks back to the early days of Greece's financial turmoil in 2008 and especially to 2010 when fears began to mount about its future within the eurozone.
Pressing calls from some members of the German coalition, including leaders of his own party, for Greece to exit the eurozone heightened tensions.
Focus news magazine published a front cover with the Venus de Milo showing the middle finger and the headline "Cheaters in the Euro Family", while Bild daily ran sensationalistic headlines accusing Greeks of laziness.
Chatzimarkakis tried at the time to temper the tone, calling for a kind of Marshall Plan for Greece along the lines of the Cold War-era initiative of the United States that helped rebuild Europe after World War II.
His suggestions were sneered at and dismissed, including from within his party's ranks. Former FDP economy minister Rainer Bruederle said Germany's conduct wasn't dictated by "Cretian shepherds".
Friction between Athens and Berlin has now calmed but the EU deputy remains critical of the way the European Union is currently run.
"We want an end to the Europe of Merkel-Barroso," he said referring to European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso.
Chatzimarkakis accuses international creditors such as the International Monetary Fund, EU and European Central Bank of imposing unfair terms for help.
Greece's troika of creditors is too hell-bent on just bringing the country's finances back into the black, rather than driving down the sky-high unemployment which among young people has hit more than 60 percent, he complained.
"Two-thirds of young people under 25 are like society's waste. It's amazing, in Europe," he said.
While a regional Greek newspaper has described Chatzimarkakis as "the mirror of Greece in German public opinion", he remains little known among most Greeks.
In Germany some argue his political career is over anyway, largely due to having been found to have plagiarised his doctorate.
But for supporters in Crete, where his father originated, he offers a glimmer of hope for a brighter future. "Greece is drowning and you're its boat," they sang in a traditional Greek song they composed for the politician's recent campaign visit to the island.