Greece and Germany’s bilateral relations “are now stronger than ever,” Finance Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis said on Monday, following a meeting with his counterpart and Vice-Chancellor of Germany Lars Klingbeil.

Greece now comes to Europe to share its lessons, Pierrakakis added, comparing the present Greece to the past one.

The two officials’ talk focused on prospects of German investments in Greece, and on issues of European interest. “We talked about issues related both to our bilateral relation, the deepening of relations in anything related to investments and bilateral trade, as well as whatever relates to wider European issues,” the Greek minister said, noting that he had the opportunity to present the Greek economy’s progress in the last few years to the German finance officials. Compared to past talk about whether Greece should stay in the eurozone, “now the situation is very different: very often, and here in Berlin, we come to speak about the lessons we learned, about how Greece managed to progress in recent years,” the FinMin added.

EU econ market

Pierrakakis also spoke of digital transformation, ahead of a meeting scheduled with Karsten Wildberger, Germany’s minister for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation. He said that digital transformation played a catalyst role in Greece’s progress and in Greek productivity and development, adding that it is one of the issues of great interest to the German federal government.

“We naturally spoke about our common views as to how we can deepen the European common market. The European Savings and Investments Union is both a German and a Greek goal. The removal of obstacles among European Union member states is something that concerns us all, in order to be able to achieve even greater development rates overall in the European continent,” the minister said, recalling the recent buyout of the Athens Stock Exchange by Euronexx. He also referred to statements of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in support of a common European stock market. “This is a vision we share, and we proved it just last week, incorporating Greece to a greater capital market, a wider liquidity pool, so that Greek businesses can profit from this.”

Greece and Germany are working together to “deepen both our bilateral relations” and jointly invest in a Europe operating better and faster to the benefit of its peoples, Pierrakakis said.