Schaeuble ‘Agrees to Disagree’ With Greece’s Varoufakis
ATHENS: Since the new anti-bailout government took control in Athens, the first direct talks between Greece and Germany last week has yielded no agreement on how to narrow their differences.
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German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said he and his Greek counterpart, Yanis Varoufakis, “agreed to disagree” in their Berlin meeting. “We didn’t even agree to disagree from where I’m standing,” Varoufakis responded.
Their encounter came hours after Greece lost a critical funding artery when the ECB restricted loans to its financial system. That raised pressure on the 10-day-old government to yield to German-led austerity demands to stay in the euro zone.
The Greek government “remains unwavering in the goals of its social salvation program, approved by the vote of the Greek people.” According to a Finance Ministry statement issued overnight. Its aim is “coming up with a European policy that will definitively put an end to the now self-perpetuating crisis of the Greek social economy.”
The next move is up to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who swept to power promising to reverse five years of spending cuts that accompanied 240 billion Euros ($272 billion) of bailout loans. While he’s retreated from demands for a debt write-down, he’s so far sticking to promises to increase pensions and wages that breach the conditions for financial aid.
