Athens--Greece on Wednesday renewed attacks on its top paymaster Germany as technical experts began talks on the crisis-hit country's new reform proposals.
The Greek justice minister threatened Berlin with asset seizures over war reparations claimed by Athens, a long-standing demand that experts say has debatable legal foundations.
Nikos Paraskevopoulos said he was "ready to approve" a Greek Supreme Court ruling in 2000 that ordered Germany to pay around 28 million euros to the relatives of 218 civilians in the central Greek village of Distomo who were massacred by Nazi forces on June 10, 1944.
Under the Supreme Court ruling, assets such as property belonging to Germany's archaeological school and the Goethe Institute could be seized as compensation.
"The law states that the minister must give the order for the Supreme Court ruling to be carried out.... I am ready to give that order," Paraskevopoulos told Antenna TV.
The move came days after Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos threatened to send migrants, possibly with jihadists hiding among them, to Berlin.
Keeping up the pressure on Germany, the Greek parliament late Tuesday unanimously approved a motion to reactivate a special committee to look into war reparations, reimbursement of a forced war loan and the return of archaeological relics seized by German occupation forces.
"We will approach the issue with the necessary sensitivity, with a sense of responsibility and honesty... We expect the German government to do the same," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told the chamber.
"We give no lessons on morality and we accept none either."
In a further dig at Berlin, he added, "As we are fulfilling our obligations, all the other parties should do the same."
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said his country was "absolutely and constantly aware of its historical responsibility" for the suffering that Nazism brought to many European countries.
"But that does not change our stance and firm belief that the question of reparations and compensation payments ... has been finally clarified and settled," he added.
"We should focus on the current issues and the hopefully good future of our two countries."
The Third Reich forced the Greek central bank to loan it 476 million Reichsmarks during the war, which has never been reimbursed.
A German lower house of parliament report in 2012 put the value of the loan at 7.7 billion euros ($8.1 billion).
Many experts however say the dispute has effectively reached a judicial stalemate after a related adjudication between Germany and Italy by the International Court of Justice in 2012.
AFP
