Reflections of bailouts

Ex-German finance minister on economic reforms in Greece.

Germany’s hardline former finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble yesterday said he would have dreaded imposing on his country austerity measures like the ones he helped design for Greece.

“I would not have wanted to be forced to impose such reforms in Germany, politically it is not at all easy,” Schaeuble, who was Germany’s feared paymaster from 2009 and one of the architects of the Greek bailouts, told Greece’s Skai Television.

With the worst of Greece’s eight-year economic crisis now over, Schaeuble said that seeing the southern European nation shrug off bailout crutches would be his “happiest moment”.

“I believe [the nightmare] is over, the data shows things are recovering,” he said.

“According to the latest [information], it is thought that Greece will manage without new measures, and that it will regain access to the markets.”

Following three successive bailouts since 2010 which Germany played a key role in crafting, Greece’s gross national output fell by a quarter owing to broad pay cuts and tax hikes imposed to rein in runaway state spending.

Schaeuble insists that the painful mix, which also saw pensions slashed, was always Greece’s choice to make.

“None of us ever wanted to harm Greece. We always fought to find the course Greece could follow towards improvement.

“It was always clear that nobody could pressure Greece. It was always clear that Greece was the one who decided,” he said.

The 75-year-old minister known for his caustic wit was nominated Germany’s parliament speaker on Tuesday. –