Protesters have broken into a conference center and clashed with police in northern Greece after gathering to demonstrate against the presence of a German government official.
The protesting municipal workers pushed and threw coffee on a German diplomat who arrived to attend the conference of Greek and German mayors being held in the city of Thessaloniki. They later forced open shutters and entered the conference center, where they clashed with riot police.
A German deputy labor minister who has been appointed special envoy to Greece, Hans-Joachim Fuchtel, was also attending the event.
The protest came after Fuchtel, who is also German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s special envoy to Greece, told journalists in the northern port city that it takes 3,000 Greek municipal workers to do the work of 1,000 of their German counterparts.
Fuchtel said studies show local authority workers in Greece are less productive than those in Germany. He said efforts should be made to reduce the number of municipal employees.
(source: AP)
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