Schaeuble says greater risk in Greece crisis is euro credibility
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned that the “far greater risk” in resolving the Greek crisis is the harm a weak deal could do to the credibility of the euro.
Risks lurk “if we lose not only acceptance in our constituencies, if we lose confidence in markets, in the euro, the monetary union,” Schaeuble said at an event in Frankfurt on Friday. “This can be dramatic. We destroy the monetary union.”
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande earlier Friday ahead of a weekend that may decide Greece’s fate in the euro. The country’s creditors are proposing a five-month program extension and 15.5 billion euros ($17.3 billion) of funding to resolve a standoff with Tsipras’s government, according to a European official.
Schaeuble said a decision on Greece will not be easy to take, putting the chances of a positive outcome at “50 percent,” without elaborating.
Schaeuble also said he warned Tsipras, before his January election victory, that his anti-austerity policy plans wouldn’t work.
“My best wish for you is that you do not win elections,” Schaeuble said he told Tsipras, without specifying when they spoke. “Because if you do win you will not be able to stick to these promises.”
[Bloomberg]
