Germany's Merkel due in post-crisis Greece on 2-day visit

Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel is due in Greece Thursday evening for a two-day visit to the country whose financial crisis marked much of her tenure and Germany’s relationship with Europe

ATHENS, Greece -- Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel flies to Greece Thursday for a two-day visit to the country whose financial crisis marked much of her tenure and Germany’s relationship with Europe.

Merkel was due in Athens on a Greek national holiday marking the day in 1940 when the country rejected an ultimatum by Fascist Italy to allow Axis troops to enter Greece. The decision led to Greece entering World War II, fighting a far stronger adversary and eventually suffering a brutal occupation by Nazi Germany.

After arriving, Merkel was to head to dinner at the residence of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, ahead of official meetings on Friday with him and Greece’s President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

“The Chancellor is grateful that she has received this invitation from (Mitsotakis). She is looking forward to her visit to Athens and to the talks there,” Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin Wednesday.