BERLIN — The German government says Chancellor Angela Merkel will travel to Germany's European Championship quarterfinal match against Greece — a game that brings together nations at opposite ends of Europe's debt crisis.
Government
spokesman Georg Streiter says Merkel would be able to go to Friday’s
match in Gdansk, June 22, Poland, because the Italian government moved forward by
several hours a meeting in Rome with her Italian and Spanish
counterparts.
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, has been a major
contributor to international bailouts for Greece and was instrumental in
demanding structural reforms and hugely unpopular spending cuts in
return. Merkel is not a popular figure in Greece.
Streiter
stresses that the quarterfinal match is purely a sporting event. He says
that the chancellor “hopes for an exciting and fair match.”
