Turkey:Germany is not planning financial aid to help Turkey deal with its currency crisis, the Berlin government says. Opportunities may arise to buy indebted Turkish firms, but for now German business leaders are indifferent.
Berlin and Brussels on Monday played down a suggestion that Germany and the European Union (EU) should offer aid to Turkey, to help offset the effects of the lira crisis.
The idea was mooted by Andrea Nahles, the leader of Germany’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD), who told the German Funke media group at the weekend that it was “in everyone’s interest that Turkey remains economically stable, and that the current turbulence involving its currency is stemmed.”
Nahles said that despite political tensions between Germany and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “a situation might arise where Germany needs to help.”
The SPD leader was responding to worsening economic conditions in Turkey, where many of its deeply-indebted private firms are struggling to repay foreign loans due to a weakening currency. The Turkish lira has plummeted nearly 40 percent against the US dollar since the start of the year.
