Greeks seek fortune with paymaster of Europe

Euro Zone: Greek immigrants in Berlin seek a better life, Rory Jones reports from the heart of Europe for The National's exclusive series.Watch video

Angela Merkel met the Greek prime minister George Papandreou to discuss the Greek debt crisis that is threatening the stability of the European currency. Sean Gallup / Getty Images

BERLIN // As she climbed out of a black Mercedes-Benz saloon outside a five-star hotel in Berlin on Monday, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, had no idea a young Greek woman was waiting tables across the street, quietly anticipating the politician's every decision.

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Mrs Merkel took time away from dealing with the euro zone's ills on Monday to visit the World Retail Congress being held at the InterContinental Hotel in the heart of leafy West Berlin.

Opposite the hotel, Karolina Giannaraki, 23, works as a waitress at Romiosini Greek restaurant, having lost her job as a cosmetics consultant in Athens only three months ago.

"It's better here," she explains. "I have my own house and pay my rent, which is a first for me - to actually pay the rent, the water and the electricity. I didn't have any money in Greece."

Having studied cosmetics for two years and achieved her qualifications, Ms Giannaraki was in a job for just two months when her employer was forced to let her go.

"They saw the crisis coming and they said to me 'sorry we can't keep you'," she explains quietly while seated at the back of the restaurant.

Ms Giannaraki's manner and hushed tones are that of an informant - one who understands the gravity of the situation in which her loved ones find themselves.

"It's terrible at this time," she says. "All the Greek people must pay very much money for the taxes and they don't have money to pay."

She desperately wants to go home, "back to Greece's beaches", and hopes Mrs Merkel and the rest of Europe's stalling politicians will come to her country's aid.

It is unclear what Mrs Merkel hoped to achieve at the retail conference, because she refused to speak to journalists and did not speak at the event. Meanwhile, Wolfgang Schäuble, her finance minister, seemed to downplay an increase in the euro bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, on German television as other politicians also denounced the idea.

"Look, it's a very complex situation," Ms Giannaraki said. "But I think that because we are in the European Union, all must help the others who have problems. It's not so very easy to explain this because the German people always say 'we are paying for you to get out of the crisis'. But the Germans do not pay the Greek people, they pay the government."

Luckily, part of Ms Giannaraki's heritage is German, so she speaks her mother's native tongue.

But her boyfriend, Giogos Karalielis, 24, had little grasp of the language when he also left Greece three months ago. He has to bake pizzas in the kitchen of another Greek restaurant in the city because he cannot take orders from customers.

"I know German and can speak it, so it's OK in Berlin," says Ms Giannaraki. "But it's very difficult for him to speak."

Just a couple of streets away from the Romiosini, Karafillidis Dimitrios, 37, explains that he is the owner of "the famous" Ach Niko Ach Greek restaurant on the city's historic Kurfürstendamm boulevard, or Ku'damm to Berliners.

"Of course people are leaving Greece, if you don't have something to eat, what can you do?" Mr Dimitrios says.

Considering that he is a restaurateur, food always seems to be on Mr Dimitrios' mind or is close at hand.

One thing that is never found in Greece, he says, is a receipt.

"The biggest problem in Greece is they do not have a serious tax system," he complains. "The Greek people work hard and nobody has to give money to tax. Nobody gives because nobody wants it. There's been no control for many years."

Greek music blares from speakers on to the quiet Berlin street, famous for the moment East Berliners first went shopping for luxury goods after breaching the wall in 1989. Ack Niko Ach has been in Berlin for 21 years and run by Mr Dimitrios for 12. He has a wife and two children, was born in Berlin and belongs somewhere between here and Athens. "Germany is my home. OK, I feel Greek, but I live here and have friends here," he explains. "Many Germans think we give Greece money, but the people there never see it in their hand."

Mr Dimitrios's parents are both retired in Greece and have recently had to take a hit on their pensions, while his sister owns a bakery that is struggling to find customers.

"They have a chance to come to Berlin because they know the language a little bit," he says.

"It's good for those people who can go, if they can go."

Back at the hustle and bustle of the World Retail Congress, some of Europe's top chief executives are debating the euro-zone crisis.

"We had the housing crisis, which led to the banking crisis, which has led to a social and financial crisis [in Europe]," says Gordon R Campbell, the managing director of SPAR International, a global convenience store chain.

He is clinical in his assessment, and as if he senses Mrs Merkel eavesdropping nearby, he becomes more candid:"Are we going to continue this cycle or are the politicians going to take the hard decisions? We are not getting good leadership at the moment."

Mohammed Al Fahim, the chief executive of the Dubai-based Paris Gallery, is just as scathing in his criticism as Mr Campbell.

"We companies understand more of what is happening," he says. "The economy and the crisis is as a result of a past decades of bad policy and irregularities. No matter what the politicians do, it will not change. They need to go back to the root of the problem."