Powerful German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble “doubled down” on his standing opposition to any discussion over Greek debt relief before 2018, this time only hours after US President Barack Obama landed in Berlin after receiving an enthusiastic reception in Athens.
Obama has emerged as a very public proponent of immediate debt relief for Greece, in tandem with implementation of structural reforms.
“Whoever now talks about relief for the Greek debt discourages those who want reforms,” he said on Thursday during an event in Vienna, according to a Reuters dispatch. The statement echoes, almost exactly to the word, a previous comment on Wednesday carried by the newspaper “Passauer Neue”.
In a later spin, a spokesman for the German finance ministry clarified that the stern Schaeuble’s statement is not related to Obama’s positions, as expressed in Athens on debt relief.
“Our position has not changed; the Obama visit (to Germany) does not change anything.”
