ATHENS, German (AFP — Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday said Greece’s buoyant return to the bond markets showed investors’ “renewed confidence” in the crisis-hit country, and pledged to back Athens on its path of reforms.

“I’m delighted, this … is proof of renewed confidence in Greece,” Merkel told a press conference during her second visit to Athens in two years.

“We’ll continue to support Greece and the Greek people… on the right path,” she added, a day after Athens ended a four-year exile from world bond markets with a better-than-expected five-year debt issue that raised 3 billion euros (US$4.2 billion).

After undertaking four years of painful reforms in exchange for two international rescue packages worth a total of 240 billion euros, Greece is now eagerly awaiting confirmation that it has posted its first primary budget surplus in years.

Signalling that Greece has turned the corner, Merkel said that the discussion for further payments from the rescue fund would now be held “under a different prism”.

“I believe we will reach a full agreement,” she said through a translator, adding that the discussion “will be held in a much more positive climate than what existed until now” given Greece’s fiscal progress.

‘Greece is attaining its targets’

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras meanwhile sought to bolster confidence in the country, saying that Greece would not require a third rescue package.

“Greece is attaining its targets and does not need a third package,” Samaras said.

In a sign that the emphasis is now switching gears towards growth-building measures rather than austerity reforms, Merkel also discussed Germany’s contribution to a 500-million-euro (US$690-million) investment fund to help the Greek economy shake off a six-year recession.

Merkel cuts a controversial figure in Greece, where many blame Germany for the painful job, pension and wage cuts that have been imposed on Athens in exchange for bailout funds.

Although protests were held on Friday against her visit, they were much smaller than those held during Merkel’s last trip in October 2012.

During her previous visit, riot police fired tear gas to disperse protesters attempting to storm a steel barricade near Parliament, just blocks away from where Merkel held talks with Samaras.

Small gangs of masked youths also threw bottles at police then, while two Nazi flags were draped on the barricade and set on fire, to the consternation of authorities in Berlin.

Security was nevertheless tight around Merkel Friday, as a powerful car bomb had exploded outside a Bank of Greece building in central Athens a day ago.

Greek media were warned of the early Thursday morning attack and police had time to clear the area before the explosion, preventing injuries.

One of the Friday’s protests was organised by the radical leftist Syriza party, which is strongly opposed to austerity and led by Alexis Tsipras, who is a candidate for EU commission president in the upcoming European Parliament elections in May.

Tsipras said Greeks should be “wary” of Merkel’s offers and that austerity, which plunged Greece in recession, threatened the whole of Europe.

“The medicine chosen for Greece was more detrimental to the country than the disease…we have social disintegration and a humanitarian crisis, and we have failed in all our fiscal targets,” Tsipras told Austrian TV channel ORF.

“There is a view that the European economy will be more competitive…with a periphery under China-level wages. This is a mistaken policy…that threatens all of Europe,” the leftist leader warned.

–