German MP Troost: Schaeuble is not the Prime Minister of Greece

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is not the Prime Minister of Greece  and he has to accept this. Greek people must be able to take their destiny in their own hands through their parliament and government.  This is what German MP Axel Troost (DIE LINKE) wrote in a press release ahead of his visit to Athens. Troost is the finance policy spokesman of the party.

“There must be a end that Greece must always impose further unsocial reforms. In addition to the already comprehensive catalog of measures of August 2015, creditors also imposed on Greece an automatic reduction mechanism in spring of 2016 and in the spring of 2017, extensive tax reforms and pension reductions. Now Schaueble wants to push further “growth-friendly reforms” to Greece – not to improve the living conditions of the Greek population, but to make economic forecasts look better. With this Schaeuble wants to squeeze the country in the debt service like a lemon and turn away the IMF with its demands for debt relief.

The Mandarins of CDU Economic Council breathe down to Schaeuble’s neck and so do the right-wing populists of AfD and CSU.  Under this pressure, he is now making the most embarrassing contortions: once it is the Greek government to be blamed for the lack of agreement,  once the International Monetary Fund. it’s never Schaeuble. The Greek government has recently met the demands of the IMF. And for months, the IMF has announced that debt relief is essential in addition to these reforms. Instead of preparing the union fraction [in German Parliament] for the debt relief, Schaeuble prefers to go to Brussels with his empty hands and pushes his weaker opponents against the wall.

Schaeuble is not the Prime Minister of Greece and he has to accept this. The Greek people must be able to take their own destiny back into their own hands through their parliament and government. Instead of taking the population of the over-indebted country into hostage, there must be a binding decision on debt relief – under realistic assumptions about further economic development and not after the elections in Germany.”  – translated from axeltroost.de.