In an interview to German newspaper Die Zeit German Minister of Economics Wolfgang Schäuble, slammed Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras for accusing Germany of targeting the Greek pensioners.

According to Schäuble, Germany is trying to help Greece get back on her feet acknowledging at the same time the progress Greece has made. When the interviewer commented that in southern Europe a quite popular view is that Germany is responsible for the austerity policies imposed on them, the German minister answered that you cannot explain to the Dutch or the German people that it is economically reasonable for them to keep paying for other countries, adding that solidarity makes sense only when help is limited and leads to a positive direction. For mr. Schäuble the programs Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus followed were successful and were followed by economic growth. In the same time Greece is on the third program without which would have gone bankrupt and things would have been worse for the Greek people.

The journalist noted that the debt relief program has temporarily being frozen because Tsipras wanted to give a one-off social benefit to pensioners. His response was that the lenders were asked if this benefit was in accordance with Greece’s obligations and they said that it wasn’t, adding that “if we do not follow rules the eurozone will collapse.