Athens appeals to Moscow to lift soft fruit ban

When Alexis Tsipras visits Vladimir Putin's Kremlin on Wednesday there is a chance the Greek premier's eastern manoeuvre will immediately bear fruit: kiwis, peaches and strawberries to be precise.

Athens is hopeful that Moscow will lift a retaliatory ban on Greek soft fruits to demonstrate the abiding strength of Russo-Greek relations, just as both leaders feel a diplomatic chill with Europe over the Ukraine crisis and Athens' bailout saga respectively.

But what worries European diplomats is that the Putin-Tsipras gladhanding amounts to something more significant than fruit trade. The big fear, in the words of one suspicious senior official, is a "Trojan horse" plot, where Russia extends billions in rescue loans in exchange for a Greek veto on sanctions - a move that would kill western unity over Ukraine.

No such shock is expected this week. But as Athens nears the brink of insolvency there is growing alarm that Mr Tsipras's radical left government might turn to Moscow in desperation. It would set off the biggest panic over Greece's strategic alignment since the 1947 US Marshall Plan, initiated to save the country from communist fighters that Mr Tsipras' Syriza party lionise to this day.

Others argue that Mr Tsipras' Russia card is but a ploy in bailout talks with Germany and the eurozone. In spite of historic cultural ties and Syriza's Soviet romanticism, analysts think Greece is too tied to the west - through EU and Nato membership - and too deep in debt for sanctions-damaged Russia to buy it off as a reliable ally.

"The Greeks are using Russia as a way to piss off Berlin, to frighten them. Tsipras wants to show he has other options," said Theocharis Grigoriadis, a Greece-Russia relations expert at the Free University of Berlin.

"But he has no intention of making Greece a Russian satellite. The Russians know that. The Germans know that. It is pure theatre, a Greek game, and I'm afraid it looks like a poodle trying to scare a lion."

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Since then Greece has showed restraint and tempered its position. But last week Mr Tsipras made waves by telling Russian news agency Itar-Tass that sanctions were an unwise "road to nowhere". Ticking off another Moscow complaint, Mr Tsipras added that a "new European security architecture should also include Russia".

Mr Kotzias, a former Piraeus university professor turned Greek foreign minister, is dismissive of sinister speculation over the Tsipras Moscow trip. "There are circles that react as if Greece were abandoning the west or wanted to engage in back-stabbing," he said at the weekend. "There are mistaken stereotypes."

Greece's affinity for Russia stretches from religion to politics and dates from the late 18th century, when Catherine the Great briefly acted as protector to some Aegean islands during an imperial Mediterranean push. A tax break was part of the deal: Greek shipowners could circumvent the Ottoman taxman by flying the Russian flag.

Almost as longstanding is Greece's track-record of flirting with Moscow when its western alliances come under strain. When Nato was seen as too friendly to Turkey in the early 1980s, Andreas Papandreou, Greece's first socialist prime minister, offered Syros island's port facilities to the Soviet navy. Tellingly, that deal was never sealed; a fate shared by many Russo-Greek plans.

For now, the Kremlin is careful not to feed speculation over loans. Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's spokesman, said Greece's economic situation and "Athens' quite tepid attitude towards this [EU] sanctions policy" would be on Wednesday's agenda. But he said Russia's readiness to offer Greece financial support was uncertain and would depend on Athens' request.

Russia loaned €2.5bn to Cyprus during its economic travails, a country with which Moscow maintains even closer economic and political ties. Yet to the Nicosia's embarrassment, Mr Putin rejected pleas for a bigger loan to avert its full eurozone bailout two years ago.

The scale of Greece's economic hole is on a different scale: it is already in receipt of a €172bn bailout programme.

"The Russians won't want to risk serious money given the possibility of another Greek default and their own present situation," said one senior banker in Athens. "But they may agree to buy some Greek treasury bills as the Chinese did recently, as a gesture of support."

Moscow says that, although it wants to soften the blow of the fruit ban, a full Greek exemption may be impossible because of global trade rules. Russia's food hygiene regulator says planned inspections of Greek producers should not be seen as a sign that the embargo will be lifted early.

So far, Moscow's main focus is on Turkish Stream, a Putin-backed pipeline to replace the collapsed South Stream, potentially entering the EU through Greece. After a recent Moscow visit, hard-left Greek energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis hailed a "new chapter" in relations, boasted of securing cheaper gas and Russian bids for deep-sea oil prospects in Greece - just the kind of exploration EU sanctions are trying to curb.

Mr Tsipras' Moscow gambit will play well with Greeks cheering his defiance of Brussels and please Syriza's hard-left faction. But Greek analysts doubt Mr Tsipras will agree to anything that would seriously alienate Berlin or Nato. Mr Tsipras, for instance, moved forward his Moscow trip by a month to avoid upsetting EU allies by appearing at Russia's second world war victory parade on May 9.

"There are economic and political advantages for both sides in getting closer but not too close," said Costas Iordanides, a veteran commentator on Greek foreign relations.

"Typically, the Russians stir things up in Greece whenever there's an opportunity. But they haven't ever challenged Greece's relationship with Nato."

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