Major German newspaper “Tageszeitung” outrightly called on the country’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble to resign in an article titled “50 years of enslavement”. The publications outlines that Mr. Schauble’s intransigent stance on the Greek debt relief stood on the way of an agreement at the EuroGroup on May 22. “This time the suspense was not due to a Greek Finance Minister, but Mr Schauble. He is the hindrance for a deal at the EuroGroup. His negative stance poses dangers because without a (debt) relief the IMF will not participate in the program and without the Fund Mr. Schauble does not intend to help Greece…The gordian knot is not easy to be solved”, the article points out. The article adopted a highly critical tone against the German politician, accusing him of setting up a trap for the creditors. It goes on to ad that the Greeks who have suffered since 2010 will be forced to pay the high price of harsher austerity measures once more. “If such catastrophic program had been imposed on the German people, Wolfgang Schauble would no longer be a Minister”, the article warns. The piece stresses that the EuroGroup wants to earn the favour of the OMF by demanding high primary surpluses on Greece beyond 2060. “This effectively means 50 years of slavery. And all of this because Schauble is Finance Minister. Well it’s high time for him to resign”, the article concludes.
Meanwhile, spokesperson for the German social democrat party (SPD) Johannes Kahrs accused the German Finance Minister of being dishonest regarding then Greek matter in an interview to Passauer Neue Presse Wednesday.