Outgoing Greek govt revisits issue of German war reparations

The development comes as snap elections will, by all accounts, be held on July 7 in Greece, and after the poll-trailing Tsipras government suffered two back-to-back election defeats over the past two weeks in the European Parliament and local government races, respectively.

Nevertheless, successive Greek governments have pressed for war reparations to be paid by Berlin for war crimes and destruction, especially for the Nazi occupation of Greece between 1941-1944, and until 1945 for Crete and a handful of other islands.

In a bid to disassociate the submission of the "note verbale" to Berlin from the current pre-election season in Greece, a foreign ministry announcement on Tuesday said the diplomatic initiative was taken after a relevant discussion by political party leaders at a Parliament plenum session on April 17, 2019.