BERLIN (MNI) – Germany’s free-market orientated FDP, the junior
partner in the coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right
CDU/CSU bloc, prefers that Greece remain in the Eurozone, FDP
parliamentary leader Rainer Bruederle said Wednesday.
“It is a better solution if Greece remains in” the Eurozone,
Bruederle, who was Economics Minister until May, told German public
television ARD in an interview.
“If Greece wants to stay [in the Eurozone], it is the sovereign
decision of the Greek state,” he added.
Bruederle defended the remarks of Economics Minister Philipp
Roesler, the FDP party leader, that a Greek orderly default must not be
a taboo any longer.
If Greece does not meet its consolidation targets it won’t receive
the next tranche of fiscal aid from its Eurozone peers, Bruederle
reaffirmed. “If it is not paid out, then the Greeks will have to decide
what they will do, if there will be a liquidation, a restructuring or a
haircut,” he said.
While Merkel claimed on Tuesday that there was no rift in her
government coalition on support for Greece, she still rebuked the
remarks by Roesler.
Merkel warned against believing that the debt crisis could be
solved with one big bang, either via eurobonds or a state insolvency.
“This won’t happen,” she stressed. Rather, overcoming the debt crisis
“will be a very long and gradual process,” she said.
Moreover, she advised against taking any steps that could lead to
uncontrollable consequences. “Everything needs to be done in a
controlled fashion and we need to know the consequences. Otherwise we
risk difficult consequences which none of us wants,” she warned.
Bruederle said today that the FDP sees “no reason at all” to leave
the government coalition. “We want to push forward reasonable things” in
government, he said.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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