BERLIN (MNI) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday she
saw a chance that Eurozone finance ministers will come to an agreement
on further aid for Greece at the upcoming Eurogroup meeting next Monday.
“There exists chances…to have a solution on Monday,” Merkel said
in a speech in parliament.
Still, the chancellor warned that there would be “no big bang”
solution for the Eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis and it needed to
acknowledged that “these things can’t be sorted out in one to two
years.”
Earlier on Wednesday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble
told parliamentarians that a solution to close the financing gap in the
rescue program for Greece needed to consist of several measures
including a debt buyback program, several lawmakers attending the
meeting said.
According to these lawmakers, Schaeuble said the volume of Europe’s
temporary bailout fund EFSF would have to be increased by E10 billion to
fund a Greek debt buyback program. Further measures are a lowering of
interest rates on the loans to Greece and an extension of their
maturities.
If the Eurogroup reaches a deal on the Greek aid measures next
Monday, Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, could then
vote on the measures the following Friday, Michael Fuchs, a member of
Merkel’s CDU/CSU parliamentary group, explained.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@mni-news.com
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