“There’s nothing new,” Steffen Seibert, Ms. Merkel’s spokesman, said a day after Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, created a political firestorm by suggesting that a third aid package for Greece was inevitable.
The brouhaha coincided with a visit to Athens on Wednesday by Jörg Asmussen, a member of the executive board of the European Central Bank and former top aide to Mr. Schäuble. Speaking after talks with Yannis Stournaras, the Greek finance minister, Mr. Asmussen said a third rescue package for Greece was “not discussed” and would not be until spring at the earliest.
Despite protests by representatives for Mr. Schäuble that he had previously signaled that Greece would need more aid, his comment on Tuesday aggravated the already fraught relationship between Greece and Germany and provided ammunition for opponents of Ms. Merkel desperate for a way to dent her solid lead in the polls.
Peer Steinbrück, chancellor candidate for the opposition Social Democrats, accused Ms. Merkel of concealing the true cost of Greek aid from German voters until after national elections on Sept. 22. Gerhard Schröder, a former chancellor unseated by Ms. Merkel, accused her of “a big lie.”
The episode also provided Greek political fodder. Newspapers in Greece, where Germany is blamed for severe cuts in government spending, reacted with sarcastic headlines, including “Schäuble threatens new aid.”
Mr. Asmussen told reporters on Wednesday that his trip to Athens had been long planned, but the timing helped feed the controversy stirred by Mr. Schäuble’s remarks about the need for another aid package.
Mr. Schäuble, a stalwart of Ms. Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, had said on several occasions in recent months that another aid package for Greece was possible and even likely. But observers thought they detected a shift in tone when, while campaigning Tuesday near Hamburg, Mr. Schäuble said that “there will have to be another program for Greece,” according to German news reports.
Greece and the cost of saving it remains a sore point for German voters and a potential weakness for Ms. Merkel. While her party is almost certain to finish first in national parliamentary elections in September, she is unlikely to win an absolute majority and will need to form a governing coalition, perhaps with the Social Democrats. Any loss of votes could weaken her bargaining position.
German government officials stressed that they remain opposed to any further debt relief for Greece and insisted that Mr. Schäuble was not signaling any change in German government policy. “The minister has repeatedly indicated that Greece’s problems cannot be solved overnight,” his office said in a statement Tuesday.
Still, Greece was the central topic at the government’s regular news conference in Berlin on Wednesday after a meeting of Ms. Merkel’s cabinet. Mr. Seibert, her spokesman, said Greece was not discussed at the meeting “because there was no occasion to.”
Martin Kotthaus, Mr. Schäuble’s spokesman, said, “It has always been clearly communicated that, if after 2014 the Greeks have further needs, we’ll see what can be done.”
Mr. Asmussen, the highest-ranking German in the E.C.B. and a formerly close confidant of Mr. Schäuble, said in Athens that further support for Greece was possible if the country lived up to promises it made in return for aid and if it met spending targets.
Greece “must continue the reforms it has started,” Mr. Asmussen said. In talks with Greek leaders, he said, “we focused on making the current program a success.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/business/global/aid-to-greece-weighs-on-german-campaign.html?partner=rss&emc=rss