Greek protesters storm conference hurling coffee, water, eggs and abuse

Helena Smith in Athens The Guardian, Thursday 15 November 2012 19.04 GMT

German mayors at co-operation event with Greek counterparts target of municipal workers incensed by overstaffing comments

A Greek protester shouts as Germany's consul in Thessaloniki, Wolfgang Hoelsche-Obermaier, centre, arrives at a conference of Greek and German mayors. Photograph: Alexandros Michailidis/Demotix/Corbis

Friendship and co-operation were at the top of the agenda. The meeting was meant to prove how Greece and Germany, Europe's two sparring allies, can actually get along swimmingly.

But before mayors from both countries could even face each other across the table at Thessaloniki's exhibition centre, furious municipal workers had not only stormed the building but gone on the attack, hurling coffee, water bottles, eggs and abuse at German officials.

In the melee, the German consul general to the Greek city, Wolfgang Hoelscher-Obermaier, (pictured, in blue shirt) was pelted with projectiles and his speech was snatched from him as protesters shouted "Nazis out" and "It's now or never." Riot police were left chasing protesters as they pushed their way into the complex and its various halls.

Barely a month after a combustible visit to Athens by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, relations between the eurozone's richest and poorest partners are still a long way from cordial.

"You could say it was quite tense," said an employee at the city Thessaloniki's town hall, where the bilateral meeting took place. "Municipal workers are angry anyway, but the remarks made by [German politician Hans-Joachim] Fuchtel really made them mad."

Fuchtel, Germany's deputy minister of labour and social affairs, is Merkel's choice to promote bilateral ties away from big government at a regional level. On Wednesday, however, the politician, who has island-hopped and mountain-trekked to win favour with ordinary Greeks, ignited a firestorm after saying local authorities in Greece were overstaffed.

"There are studies and research which have shown that as far as local administration is concerned 3,000 workers are needed in Greece to do the work carried out by 1,000 Germans," he said on the eve of the two-day conference whose aim is promote regional co-operation by bringing together mayors from both countries. "Answers should be given especially to those [EU] partners who are financing processes in Greece, as to why there is not a more effective exploitation of the labour force."

Berlin has been the biggest bankroller of the €240bn (£193bn) bailouts propping up the debt-choked Greek economy – and with it the toughest advocate of austerity in Athens.

But for Greek municipal workers who stand to be axed in the latest round of belt-tightening demanded of the country – and who have begun occupying town halls nationwide – Fuchtel's statement appears to have been the last straw.

"These people haven't come to help us, but to announce our death sentence," said Themis Balassopoulos, who, as head of the municipal workers' union, had travelled to Thessaloniki to attend the demonstration.

In Berlin, a spokesman at the foreign office, mindful of the meeting's raison d'etre, tried to play down the incident. "We can confirm that there was a demonstration on the margin of the conference but to our knowledge there were no injuries," he said.

Later in the day Hoelscher-Obermaier emerged from the building to say he thought Fuchtel's comments had been misconstrued. "It was a misunderstanding. I am more pro-Greek than I was before today," he told reporters.

Even Merkel, who had been the target of virulent anti-German sentiment during her six-hour stopover in Athens last month, said she believed the Thessaloniki meeting was "a good thing". "I heard that there were some very constructive talks," she said, before adding: "Violence is no means for political disputes."

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