“Greece will not have a problem with the debt service in the next decade” German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble claimed for one more time at a conference of bankers in Frankfurt.
According to ANT1, Schaeuble reiterated ” the need to implement reforms in public administration, labor and in regulation of the internal market,” and warned that “in case of debt relief, Athens will not proceed with these reforms.”
“the opposite of the desired effect will happen,” Schaeuble summarized his vision of Greece’s debt relief and called on Athens to keep the agreement.
PS what happened to Obama and his support to Greek Debt Relief? Is he still in Germany?
Schauble is right. Debt relief should happen after all the reforms are done. I am not talking about spending cuts, more actual reforms to help the economy.
If Greeks get debt relief now, Tsipras will have a big party, say that he is the master of the world and smarter than Troika and then the Greek economy in the long run will be in the same mess that caused the crisis in the first place!
lidlee is schaeuble’s mouthpiece?
Poor Greece.
But Schauble and company have never identified specific “reforms” that will actually help the economy versus the many reforms that are nothing but window dressing. The proposed bakery and pharmacy reforms are examples of, not only window dressing, but reforms that show no potential to stimulate economic growth. Greek bread prices are, and always have been, lower than in Germany, and we have a greater access to bakeries. Drug prices in Greece are the lowest in Europe. Indeed, one medicine I have been taking that costs 1500 Euro per month requires a doctor’s certified prescription for every purchase because outside Greece it sells for 2500 to 4000 Euro ( or $7400 – $8400 in the US), and the vendor is trying to tamp down black market sales to other countries. But the point is that both vendors and our small neighborhood pharmacies are making a reasonable profit, create a fair number of jobs and the people enjoy low drug prices. Is this an inferior model to “Boots” and other corporate pharmacy models?
When all is said and done, I think Wolfie’s economic ideology is a variant of, “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
Tobama is already in Peru, remembering that original it was scheduled to be first in Berlin and then in Athens it was never scheduled to talk in Berlin about Greece with Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Britain and so it was just a summit about Syria, Ukraina and the pig in the tower.