Brussels, 18/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 18 December, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, made an overall reassuring speech about the situation in Greece to the Bundestag, which went on to approve the two-month extension of the aid programme for Greece. “The situation of the country is better than generally expected a few years ago”, he said, referring, amongst other things, to the reforms of the employment market, “which have made the country more competitive”. “If the reforms underway continue, Greece will see further successes”, he continued.
In Greece, following a first-round rejection by the national parliament (at 160 votes, with 200 needed for this round) of the candidate for the Presidency put forward by the government, Stavros Dimas, the tone was slightly more alarmist. If Dimas fails to gather the support of 180 MPs in the third round, the country will be forced into early elections, which could well be won by the radical left-wing party, Syriza. Constantinos Mitsotakis, honorary president of the New Democracy party (in power), is reported in the Greek press as having said on Thursday that early elections would take the country out of the eurozone. A gesture and an appeal to the sense of responsibility of the MPs, at a time when it had appeared for several months that the prospect of a 'Grexit' had been avoided for good. This week, the European Commission reiterated that the only scenario acceptable to it would be to keep Greece firmly anchored in the eurozone. From Rome, the Italian finance minister, Pier Carlo Padoan, was also determinedly reassuring. “The Greece of 2015 is not the Greece of 2010 or 2011”, he told a conference.
The Bundestag also discussed a precautionary credit line to be granted to Greece once it has concluded its programme. According to the Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini, a document presented to the German MPs refers to a credit line of €10.9 billion and states that the European Commission has put the country's needs for 2015 at between €6 and €12 billion. (EL)