After meeting his Irish counterpart Enda Kenny in Athens on May 23, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said Greece could use the Irish model for getting out of an economic crisis. Like Greece, Ireland needed the help of international lenders and imposed hard austerity measures. But, unlike in Greece, the Irish didn’t protest, go on strike or riot.
“Achieving an end to the crisis does not mean walking on an endless road,” Samaras said adding that Ireland had shown the way back to growth and to the markets. Speaking during a joint press conference, Kenny said the two men had discussed banking union and youth unemployment, which is at 64 percent in Greece.
Ireland is currently holder of the rotating EU presidency, which Greece will assume for six months next year as a symbolic leadership role that has no real powers.
Back home, Kenny is trying to defend the special tax rates it has given to American computing giant Apple which has legally escaped paying any significant taxes. Samaras didn’t say if he’d make the same offers to get foreign direct investors although he said during a trip to China that he told companies there he would roll out the red carpet and cut bureaucracy for them if they came to Greece.
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