ATHENS — German Ambassador to Athens Ernst Reichel made the following statement to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA) on the occasion of the assumption of the presidency of the European Council by Germany for the second half of 2020.

"If you look at the way Europe has dealt with the coronavirus crisis in the past, I think it was good overall, we worked well together and the European Union has shown great solidarity. It is true that in the first days each country tried to deal with the pandemic on its own, as of course Greece. But after a few days we started thinking about how we, the Europeans, would work together to tackle the coronavirus, we continued in the phase of solidarity and I am convinced that we have finally shown great solidarity. And the proposal for the 750 billion euro recovery package, which is not the EU's first aid package to tackle the coronavirus crisis, proves, I think, better than anything else the unparalleled solidarity that the European Union showed during the crisis," he said.

"As far as Greece is concerned, the numbers speak for themselves. Greece, in proportion to its population, belongs to the countries with the fewest cases of coronavirus in Europe. Greece reacted quickly and the fact that it implemented the lockdown decisively proved to be successful. Good crisis management gives hope that the economic consequences of the coronavirus crisis will be limited. Good crisis management is already leading to the resumption of the tourist season in Greece, while in other countries such as Turkey this is not the case. This is an advantage. Basically, it is also generally true that anyone who comes out of the crisis faster can quickly resume economic activities. And I believe that Greece is in this situation."