Minister’s sex chat lines scandal to cost £20 million

A sex phone lines scandal in Greece that will cost the taxpayer close to £20 million has enraged Germans who are bearing the brunt of the bailout for Athens.

Sotirios Hatzigakis, 66, a former justice minister, admitted that while in office he gave 30 friends and relatives free mobile telephones. Most used them to call premium-rate sex lines.

German media reported that some of Mr Hatzigakis's friends and relatives were clocking up £10,000 a month in calls to the sex lines, which were not only operating in Greece but also abroad. The sex lines had names like Hot Pussycats, Bored Housewives and Dial A Leather Mistress.

Germany's Bild newspaper said: "The Greeks are not the only ones scratching their heads asking: how was this possible? Hatzigakis could - like so many other ministers in earlier times - reign as he wanted to.

"As well as the telephone sex scandal, he is accused of nepotism, accommodating altogether 269 fellow party members and his own children in state-owned companies."

An irate caller to Bavarian Radio today said: "This is outrageous. Germany is being asked to bail out these spendthrifts allegedly to save ourselves and the euro but we are dealing with a culture where corruption is a way of life.

"How on earth can our leaders expect to convince us that Greece is worth saving when this takes place?"

Germany is paying billions more than any other nation to underwrite the �110 billion Greek rescue package - this at a time when the conservative-led coalition government in Berlin has embarked on its own £73 billion austerity package, the biggest in post-war German history.

Billions will have to be shaved from welfare, schools, police, the army and public services.

Earlier this year the popular daily newspaper Bild welcomed the Greek prime minister on a visit to the country saying: "Welcome to the land of the taxpayer, the land where you do not have to pay a bribe to get a hospital bed, where people pay their taxes, work hard and taxi drivers issue receipts."

A news magazine had a different take on Germany's response to the Greek crisis - it printed a front page picture of Aphrodite giving the finger to Athens.

The European Commission said yesterday that Greece's economic reforms were "broadly on track, despite some slippage".