By Thomas Widder
BERLIN (MNI) – Germany’s free-market orientated FDP, the junior
partner in Chancellor Angel Merkel’s coalition government, is prepared
to support financial aid to Greece should the Greek government request
it, a source close to the FDP parliamentary group told Market News
International on Monday.
The FDP parliamentarians acknowledge the fact that denying help to
Greece would in the end be even more costly than granting loans to the
ailing Eurozone member state, the official said.
Norbert Barthle, the parliamentary budget policy speaker of
Merkel’s center-right CDU/CSU bloc, already said earlier this month that
the CDU/CSU parliamentary group had no problems with the aid package
proposed to Greece. “We can all live with that,” the parliamentarian
said.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in a newspaper
interview published Sunday that the government would not need a
supplementary budget should the loans to Greece be called on. But
parliamentary approval will be required. “We will still introduce a law
on which the parliament decides,” he told German weekly Der Spiegel.
The government’s fiscal goals would not be put at risk were Germany
to provide financial aid to Greece as part of the E30 billion
contingency loan package agreed upon by Eurozone states, Schaeuble
stressed.
Under the terms of the plan, Germany would contribute up to E8.4
billion in bilateral loans to Greece, the biggest contribution of all
the EMU members.
The Minister repeated that the state-owned KfW bank would raise the
money and the government would guarantee it. “The risk is manageable,”
he asserted.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: M$G$$$,M$X$$$,M$$CR$,MFGBU$,MFX$$$,MGX$$$,M$$FX$,MX$$$$]
