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Schaeuble: Greek “haircut” only if Greece leaves the Eurozone

German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in a statement  just before the upcoming Euroworking Group ruled out the possibility of a haircut of the Greek debt. He underscored that something like this would be a violation of the Lisbon Treaty. As he said, something like that could take place only if Greece was not inside the Eurozone.

We must continue to push Greece to make reforms in order to become competitive. Otherwise the country will have to leave the Eurozone”, he stated.

At the same time the German press attacked Schaeuble accusing him of behaving like a dictator. More specifically, Tageszeitung argues that although the German Minister knows that the measures he wants Greece to take don’t work, he chooses to ignore this reality. The newspaper says that Greece has been turned into a German colony and while Schaeuble’s hardline behavior may be appealing to German voters, the impression the rest of Europe has is that Germanyhas become an unreasonable overlord that mercilessly  tortures weaker countries, something that Germany will eventually pay for.