German legal expert: Shame on Berlin for how it deals with Greek reparation demands

"To invoke the 2 + 4 treaty is a very bad argument to defend against war damages. I would not even consider it to be a legal argument because it is coffeeh shp talk. Greece did not take part in the 2 + 4 Agreement. Assuming that the German argument was valid, then it would have been the so-called "contract against a third party". But such a convention is equally unacceptable in international as well as in private law, " he said in an interview published today in the Berlin newspaper" Neues Deutschland ".

The prominent German lawyer, who has taught in many German universities and abroad, also states that "it is a shame that the federal government is trying, with such a weak argument, to block the debate on the legal and political consequences of historical injustice," and stresses that "it is already fraudulent to initially ask Germany for the postponement of the payment settlement and then unilaterally to declare the matter legally and politically resolved". He also refers to the 1953 London Agreement on Germany's Deleted Debts, pointing out that "as a debtor, one is not able to put paid to an issue, neither politically nor legally much less morally."