Greece making big efforts, Greek PM tells Germany

Merkel says EU must agree more reforms by June summiteece is making enormous efforts to get its economy back on track despite the pain this involves for its citizens, its prime minister Antonis Samaras said on Tuesday on a visit to Germany, chief champion of austerity in Europe.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has praised the reform drive of Samaras’ coalition government, said the whole European Union faces hard work in the coming months to reach agreement on closer economic ties aimed at ending the debt crisis.

“I would like at the outset to make clear that our country is making enormous efforts, accompanied by great sacrifices, to get things back on the right path,” Samaras told reporters before his talks with Merkel.

“We are trying to win back credibility, among the peoples of Europe and among the financial markets,” he said, adding that Greece had adopted a raft of measures to achieve this goal and to get liquidity flowing to businesses again.