WSJ - Ms. Merkel said on Wednesday that no one should expect any concrete decisions
to come out of her meeting with Mr. Samaras on Friday. The question of whether to grant Athens more time is likely to play a
significant role in talks between Ms. Merkel and Mr. Hollande at a working
dinner in the Berlin chancellery on Thursday evening. The German and French
leaders will make a brief statement to the press at about 1 p.m. ET Thursday and
then withdraw for dinner and try to resolve their differences over dealing with
Greece. It is believed that Mr. Hollande favors granting Greece more time. Ms.
Merkel hasn't showed her hand yet, but her coalition government is deeply
divided over the issue and she risks splitting the government if she agrees to
give Greece more money, say analysts.
The pro-business Free Democrats, junior partner in Ms. Merkel's ruling
center-right coalition, have insisted that Greece should be given no more aid
and suggested it would be better for Athens to leave the euro. "We want to help, but there won't be any substantial changes to the agreed
reforms," Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, a senior FDP official, told the
daily Maerkische Allgemeine newspaper in an interview published on Thursday.
German opposition parties oppose the government's apparent hard line on
Greece. "It's not very smart to abandon all conditions (for aid) over an extension of
12 months," said Frank-Walter Steinmeier in an interview with the left-leaning
Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
2 comments:
Savers are suffering, but without QE it would be a lot worse
By lowering long-term interest rates and stimulating the economy, QE has helped to prevent asset prices falling by as much as they would otherwise have done.
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As part of a €130bn bailout package from the EU and IMF, Greece has committed to sweeping reforms and some €11.5bn of cuts in 2013 and 2014. But, it is thought that Mr Samaras wants two more years to make the cuts.
The Greek prime minister has used interviews with German and French newspapers over the last week to call for more time to meet the targets set out under the bailout agreement, saying Greece needs some "breathing space".
But neither Mr Hollande nor the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, have responded directly to that request.
After talks with Mrs Merkel on Friday, the German chancellor pledged to keep Greece in the eurozone, saying she was "deeply convinced" that the new Greek government was “doing everything to solve the problems. But, she refused to address Greece's plea for more time
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