Germany Willing To Consider Further Help To Greece Amid Debt Crisis
BERLIN, July 19 (UPI) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been front and center for weeks in the bailout negotiations for Greece, said Sunday that her government is willing to consider further measures to relieve Athens’ debt health.
Speaking to German television, Merkel said there are several options on the table to assist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government as it struggles to repay loans and eliminate debt. However, she stipulated that would only be possible once the details of Greek economic reforms are worked out.
“Greece has already been given relief. We had a voluntary haircut among the private creditors and we then extended maturities once and reduced interest rates,” she told Germany’s ARD TV.
“We can now talk about such possibilities again … once the first successful review of the program to be negotiated has been completed, then exactly this question will be discussed. Not now, but then,” she added.
Merkel, though, rejected any idea that officials will consider simply writing off any of Greece’s debt.
Tsipras finally agreed last week to the terms of a near $90 million bailout from international creditors, after months of stalemate. The sticking points in negotiations were economic policy reforms mandated by creditors, specifically involving workers’ wages and pensions, in exchange for the release of billions in loan cash from the International Monetary Fund. After 17 hours of negotiations last week, Tsipras finally gave in to the terms.
The German government has been closely monitoring the situation because it — as well as other members of the European Union — would be affected should Greece be expelled from the euro.
Merkel’s remarks Sunday highlight the country’s willingness to keep Athens from sliding into a fiscal abyss, while emphasizing Tsipras’ government would not simply be given a clean slate without earning it.
Also Sunday, French President Francois Hollande proposed the idea for a government for eurozone — the collective body of the European Union’s finance ministers.
It’s an idea previously raised by former European Commission head Jacques Delors.
“I have proposed taking up Jacques Delors’ idea about euro government, with the addition of a specific budget and a parliament to ensure democratic control,” Hollande wrote in French newspaper Journal du Dimanche. “But we cannot stand still.”
Hollande’s article, which is a direct result of the Greek financial crisis, didn’t outline specifics for such a government, but it does call for better governance of the euro.
Athens defaulted on a $1.7 billion payment to the IMF two weeks before agreeing to the bailout terms. Greek banks have also been closed for about three weeks, but are now beginning the process of reopening.
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