Arriving at the village of Ligiades in Ioannina in northwestern Greece, visiting President of the Federal Republic of Germany Joachim Gauck expressed his country's formal apology for the atrocities suffered by villagers during the Nazi occupation of WWII. Gauck was accompanied by Greek President Karolos Papoulias.

"I wish to express what the culprits but also those politically responsible over the years in the post-war period did not want to or could not say: that what happened here was a brutal injustice. With a sense of shame and anguish, I want to say sorry to the families of those who were murdered," he said.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos met with the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Joachim Gauck on March 6.

Venizelos briefed Gauck on the Greek economy mentioned the various negative and unfair stereotypes about Greece reproduced by a portion of the German news media, and emphasized the close Greek-German cooperation within the framework of the Eurozone and the adjustment programme of the Greek economy.

On the matter of German reparations and the occupation debt, Venizelos underscored that President of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias expressed all the political forces of the Hellenic Parliament and the Greek people, and that "this is the position of the Greek government, which is responsible for charting the country’s foreign and economic policy."