by Vasiliki Siouti

Following the government’s ‘tough negotiations,’ deputy prime minister Evangelos Venizelos’s proudly announced that ‘we will be getting out of the memorandum in the spring,’ while Antonis Samaras has provided assurances that Greece will not be signing any new loan agreement.

However the new German government appears to be working from a different script. Already certain relatively low-key statements by top officials indicate that the new administration is planning to give lie to all of the positive pronouncements from Greece’s top two officials.

Little is different in Germany following the country’s elections, particularly when it comes to its handling of Greece. The behaviour of German officials towards the Greek government is not likely to change and despite Samaras and Venizelos’s bold statements – especially in parliament during the passing of the 2014 budget – the Germans are hardly about to pack up and leave, with all of their words and actions indicating the exact opposite.

A few days ago, German officials stated that, ‘more assistance to Greece is planned.’ Moreover, shortly before her meeting with Samaras, Angela Merkel declared that while, ‘Greece has achieved a lot,” she added with meaning, “the job required has not been completed.” The Germans are also not talking about the memorandum ending in the spring but rather the ‘ completion of the second round of rescue loans to Greece by the end of 2014.’

As noted in Berlin according to the bailout program Greece, must reduce its debt to 124% of GDP by 2020. In mid 2014 it will be determined whether this goal is attainable or whether further assistance will be required (with the Germans continuing to refuse any discussion of a further debt ‘haircut’).

In November of 2012 Eurogroup agreed to support Greece, if necessary, until the country was able to access international markets, with the lenders making absolutely clear that a precondition for this assistance was the implementation of all of the memorandum measures.

In any case the German chancellor, in the recent conference hosted by the Süddeutsche newspaper attended by Antonis Samaras, stressed that, “the effort has not been completed,” and that while Greece may have achieved a primary budget surplus, that was only one of the preconditions for it to stand on its own feet again, implying therefore that there are further preconditions yet to be met for Greece to leave the memorandum. And Wolfgang Schauble for his part continually insists that the basic precondition for Greece to access international markets is the implementation of all memorandum structural reforms, a process whose completion, Schauble made clear, will be judged by the troika representatives, and not the Greek government.

The critical question is therefore: does Germany believe that Greece has met its commitments and implemented all of the reforms demanded by the memoranda? The answer is no. Indicative of the tone coming from Berlin is an article published on Saturday by the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper entitled, “Griechenland Rechenkünste statt Reformen,” (link in German) or “Greek arithmetic skills rather than reforms.”

In the article the newspaper states that Greece is still lagging in reforms and is once again engaging in ‘creative accounting.’ It also notes that despite the public praise Greece has received from high-ranking troika officials for its unprecedented budget adjustment, when the microphones are off they have a different story to tell, complaining of procrastination and promises that are not kept. Essentially the message emerging from the article is that Greece needs more time and more pressure implying that Greece will require further bailouts.

The Greek government, of course, has in recent months been saying the exact opposite. Yet it won’t be the first time that it backtracks and the prime minister has already started doing so. In an an interview he gave to the Kathimerini newspaper this Sunday, Samaras did not provide any real news except for one statement that may have been picked up on by careful readers: “The possibility of additional assistance is already provided for in the current agreement,” he said. He therefore laid the groundwork for a possible ‘extension’ of the memorandum agreement. If that occurs he will be able to claim that he is not signing a new memorandum but that the current one is merely being extended with additional ‘structural reform’ measures.

In reality however this means maintaining the memorandum and the conditions that go along with it (given that it has been made clear that under no circumstances will more loans be forthcoming without additional conditions) well past the spring of 2014.

Reporting by Vasiliki Siouti, translation by Pavlos Zafiropoulos