Mr Schäuble was interviewed by the German newspaper, Handelsblatt.
Greece has to decide for itself. Given the difficult situation on the financial markets and in Greece itself, I don’t at any rate believe it is time for renewed speculation. And besides, grand-scale global doomsday scenarios have never been borne out.
The EFSF has never been topped up. We have consistently said that the EFSF will have a lending capacity of €440 billion – with Germany providing guarantees for €210 billion. We had always agreed, however, that the temporary rescue package should be replaced as quickly as possible by a permanent financial institution. Perhaps you’ll recall that it was the German finance minister who called very early on in the proceedings for something along the lines of a European monetary fund. That seemed to shock everyone at the time. The ESM comes very close to such a fund.
The euro is not the cause of the crisis. Thanks to the European Union and the euro, we have weathered the crisis so well that most people have already long forgotten that GDP collapsed by more than five per cent in 2009. At the outset of this legislative period, the Chancellor said we wanted to get back to pre-crisis conditions by the end of the term. And everyone mocked her for that. Half way through the legislative period, we are further on than we were before the crisis. The crisis is still here, yes, but the euro isn’t to blame.
Full interview
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