BERLIN (MNI) – Greece will make use of the financial aid offered by
its EU peers and the IMF, according to one German lawmaker
Norbert Barthle, the parliamentary budget policy speaker of German
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right CDU/CSU bloc, expects that
Greece is certain to make use of the facility.
“I firmly expect that Greece will need help,” Barthle told German
business daily Handelsblatt in an interview published Tuesday. The
CDU/CSU parliamentary group has no problems with the aid package
proposed to Greece by Eurozone Finance Ministers on Sunday, he
suggested. “We can all live with that,” the parliamentarian said.
The Finance Ministry said on Monday that Germany would have to
shoulder up to E8.4 billion from the overall up to E30 billion aid
package from the Eurozone.
Barthle said that Germany would even profit from handing out loans
to Greece. Given that Greece would likely have to pay an interest rate
of 5% on the loan “this would be a good deal,” he noted.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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