FDP chief says Schaeuble ‘not tough enough’

The leader of Germany’s Free Democrats (FDP), Christian Lindner, seen as a likely successor at the finance ministry if his probusiness party enters a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), has criticized outgoing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble for not being tough enough on Greece.

“Mr Schaeuble did not manage to impose himself over the chancellor in many questions of European policy. Just remember the third aid package for Greece, which he originally did not want to do,” Lindner told German daily Handelsblatt in an interview yesterday.

The 38-year-old politician managed to lead the FDP back into parliament after a four-year absence on the back of a pledge to limit financial perils from the eurozone and an illiberal assault on Merkel’s opendoors refugee policy.

In the same interview, Lindner called for the creation of an insolvency law for eurozone states, while arguing that countries should be able to leave the common currency area while remaining in the European Union.

In May, the FDP chief said that Greece should leave the euro temporarily until its economy was back on track. If the Greek debt is not sustainable as the IMF claims, Lindner said at the time, then it has to be restructured – and this cannot take place within the eurozone.

Lindner avoided to say if his party would push to take over the Finance Ministry.

“For us a change in fiscal policy is more important than a new minister,” said Lindner, who also expressed doubts about the prospects of a three-way alliance between CDU, FDP and the Greens, known as the “Jamaica coalition.”