Greece must decide whether it wants to remain in the eurozone, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday, adding Berlin is open to discussing debt relief for Athens in 2018 if such a step is needed.
He also said debt relief for Greece was not an issue at the moment and the goal was to complete the program review.
“If the agreement is adhered to by all sides, I am confident it will work,” Schaeuble told reporters in Berlin.
He referred to the Eurogroup agreement from May 2016 that debt relief should, as a matter of principle, be looked at from 2018 and if, contrary to expectations, it is needed, such measures could be introduced. (via Reuters)
PS This statement reminds me of an old record player we once had. Occasionally the needle would stuck and we would hear “I want t… I want t… I want t… I want t… I want t… I want t…” – until someone would stand up and turn the devil’s tool off. A guy was called in to fix the problem. It worked for some time and then it started again: “I want t…I want t…I want t…I want t…I want t…”. One day, my mom threw it in the garbage bin.
Like a broken record…over and over and over again. This guy is unbelievable. Why do we have to deal with him?
Ah!!! Now I understand. Athens is not one of the European Zombie Safe Zones That’s why we have to listen over and over again with the Schaeuble that simply won’t die.
Actually, I think Schaeuble is already dead. His body is kept alive artificially, and they have recordings of his malakies from the past that they can play back repeatedly. This way, Merkel can stay in power — because the idiot Germans think that Schaeuble is good for Germany. They used to say that about some other people in the 1930s and early 1940s, but decided to shut their mouths after 1945. Until recently, anyway…
Is someone jealous of Germany’s success? Someone asked me why Schauble doesn’t instead pay attention to his own economy instead of Greece’s. I replied saying that he doesn’t need to, Germany runs itself, the finance minister barely needs to do anything over there!
Yes Syrizee you say that because you’re a dummy! Germany’s economy is doing very well for the 0.01%, the world knows that.
Exactly. The current account surplus that Germany has been running for a decade or so does not translate into better quality of life for ordinary Germans. On the contrary, they have suffered wage cuts and pension reductions in order for the super-rich to increase their profits. It is one of the reasons that the German people are not sympathetic to the plight of Greece — and something that the Right play on to continue sucking money out of not only Greeks but also their own citizens.
“has been ruining”
LOL
The account surplus plus pension and wage cuts along with a positive exchange rate to the Euro made the coffers of the German government as well as of German banks overrun. They had to put that money somewhere and among other things they loaned it to whomever wanted to borrow. And when it turned out that they might have to kiss that money goodbye when it all went bad in Greece, Portugal and Spain, their banks got an EU tax payer funded bailout. These bankers then laughed all the way to their banks. Greece -while they cooked their books- actually saved the Eurozone from falling over by accepting the bailout conditions instead of defaulting.
Taxpayers bailing out banks (while these are not nationalized) that made bad investments is bad capitalism.
Let us not forget: tax-payer funded bailouts for banks would not have been possible without crooked Quislings running these countries. We know our own: Geoffrey Pap, Venizelos, Papademos, Kouvelis, Samaras, Tsipras and so on. What a nice guillotine they would decorate with their necks, when sentenced for high treason!
A large chunk of that surplus is an illusion. It is tied up in the Target2 balances and the Germans will never see most of it. Nor can they invest any of the surplus without losing most of it. No win situation. Hardly surprising the Germans have moved a lot of their gold from New York and Paris.
Because it diverts attention in Germany away from the migrant crisis caused by Angela Merkel and that’s important in an election year. It’s all politics.
The migrant crisis was not caused Merkel at all. She responded to a crisis with an attempt to provide leadership within the EU for handling refugees. It failed, because of the far right mentality that prevails across the continent. The crisis is mostly the result of the war in Syria, financed by the UK and USA (amongst others). The UK is one of the most problematic offenders in the EU for creating refugees and then refusing to accept them when they reach Europe. And its population is moronic enough to think that their politicians are doing a good job, when they are actually fucking up the world as well as the UK.
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Germany is not handling the eurozone crisis well or fairly. But it is one of the few EU countries that behaves responsibly with regard to refugees.
You are right about how the crisis all came about. But the thing with Merkel is, she made an unilateral decision without consulting other EU countries. It is not the first time Germany did this and that is the problem with Germany’s ‘leadership role’ in the EU.
When Germany (or any country) consults with other EU countries, the result is always the same: nothing happens, nothing is agreed. This is the result of stupidly having 28 countries in the EU. The politicians were told this in advance, that more than 15 would be impossible for agreement and progress. As always, the sheer arrogance and stupidity (not to mention greed) of politiicians is what has led to this mess.
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You can hardly blame Merkel for not consulting, and trying to lead by example. It was actually the only rational thing to do.
Nope, the EU has rules and regulations for that. They all agreed to that. She ignored that and brushed it aside. Now others have started to ignore it as well (and are ignoring Merkel) because she set a precedent.
What are you gabbing about? I am telling you that it is impossible to get agreement with 28 members. There are no rules that can work, because even when there are policy areas that do not require unanimity, the minority countries just refuse to accept the consensus. This is what happened with the relocation policies for refugees — which Hungary and others refuse to implement. Like the eurozone, the structure adopted by Europe’s politicians just fucking stupid.
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And until the refugee so-called crisis, the European Commission had intended to abolish the Dublin Regulation. Now they continue with it, to make sure that Greece and Italy suffer the problem of refugee inflows and not all of Europe. It is a recipe for disaster — but Merkel is the only one who showed any intelligence. Fascists and morons do not thank her for this, of course.
I am telling you that the EU countries agreed on decision making. Some decisions require unanimity, some decisions don’t. Merkel decided she could go it alone and ignored her partners. So she was the one that broke the rules so other decided they could do it as well themselves. The problem is that some are more equal than others. Germany was tough on countries that broke the deficit rules but when they were caught themselves suddenly the rules did not apply to them or were amended. So other countries now think “f*ck all” and “oh yeah? make me do it”, just because some big players think rules don’t apply to them. And Merkel decision to put no limit on the number of refugees they would accept was not a rational decision because she could have known that that could serve as an incentive for people from wherever to come. She also could have known that Germany did not have the capacity to take in so many people and check their credentials. She could have known that war criminals and terrorist would be hiding among them and that there would be attacks, violence, crime and trouble. Crime statistics don’t lie. There are true refugees that should be taken in but there are also plenty of opportunists looking for a free ride.
Im sorry, but your anti-refugee attitude is all that you are interested in talking about. I am telling you that the EU does not function with 28 states, in many policy areas including even the eurozone (which is only 19).Your rant is totally irrelevant.
You make yourself irrelevant all the time. You advocate that it is ok to violate rules and regulations in the EU and that some should just go it alone because they feel ‘it is the right and moral thing to do’. And then you complain that others do the same when they do something you don’t like. Double standards much? The EU decided to have 28 members and put the political and legal framework for in it place so they need to stick to it.
Anyway, the EU will soon be 27 and good riddance to the UK.
Btw, I am not against refugees as you claim. I always said Europe should take in genuine refugees and you cannot prove that I said otherwise. You just say that to demonize me, a tactic used quite too often by SJW. I am against migrants that cloak themselves as refugees, often using false ids, who come to Europe for economic reasons. There simply aren’t jobs for them because Europe has millions of unemployed itself. Some migrants think they get a free for all and can act with impunity. You cannot deny that there are problems with migrants that commit crimes in Europe. We don’t need these people. You never denounce that violence. Once you said “of course migrants commit crimes”. I don’t find it natural to repay countries that take you in with crimes and violence. If you don’t denounce that, then you condone it and you will be responsible for people voting for the likes of Le Pen and Wilders. These migrants ruin it for the real refugees.
A study on psychology recently published indicates that people that feel outrage over some social or ethical issue do that for self servicing reasons: to feel good about themselves, to feel less guilt and to have better social standing. That sums up SJW and Gutmensch folks aka bourgeois idealists.