Greece and Germany share a common future as part of their European course, President Karolos Papoulias told visiting German President Joachim Gauck yesterday, after an official welcome ceremony at the Presidential Mansion. However, during talks between the two leaders, Papoulias returned to the two issues of German war reparations and repayment of a forced WWII loan extracted from Greece by the Nazi regime.

Speaking at a joint press conference following their meeting, Papoulias said: "I raised the issue of German reparations and the occupation loan with President Gauck. I want to point out that Greece has never ceded its claims and it requests that talks to resolve the issue should commence at the earliest opportunity."

The Greek president conceded that the crisis Greece is experiencing is due to considerable mistakes of its own, underlining however the shortages in the euro's structure and the deadlock of the punitive, as he said, policies that the countries of the North are imposing.

On his part, Gauck affirmed Germany's solidarity with Greece and said that Europe was learning from its mistakes and reforming, during a lecture organised by the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) and the German Embassy at the Acropolis Museum. Although Gauck dismissed Greek demands for compensation for Nazi-era crimes, he instead offered to set up a new fund to remind Germans of their past.