Germans are urged to take Greek holidays

An MEP from Germany’s governing coalition has urged his countrymen to holiday in Greece to help support the debt-laden country struggling to avert a default, a German newspaper reported last Tuesday. “Anyone who has ever considered going on holiday to Greece can now send a signal,” Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, a European parliamentary mem­ber for the Free Democratic Party, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition.

“Every holidaymaker is a help to the country,” he told the Hamburger Abendblatt.

Greece urgently needs to see economic growth, he said, adding that the country’s hotels only tended to be full in July and August. “So there’s ample growth potential,” he said. Germany is the main contributor to euro rescue funds for Greece.