GERMANY: Fierce German resistance to helping crisis-hit Greece has
emerged in an FT opinion poll that strengthens the hand of Angela
Merkel before a possible European showdown this week over financial aid
for Athens, the paper says. Germans overwhelmingly opposed offering
financial support to Greece and are strikingly more hostile than other
Europeans, including the British, the FT/Harris poll showed. Almost a
third of Germans believed Greece should be asked to leave the eurozone,
the paper says. Further highlighting flagging support for the euro, some
40 per cent of Germans also thought Europe’s biggest economy would be
better off outside the single currency – a significantly higher level of
scepticism.