Many German newspapers backed their country’s stance in the protracted Greek debt crisis with one claiming Athens thought it could treat the Germans as “fools”.
That too was the tone of one of the main players in the Greek drama, who met with the Greek politicians described by one German paper as having “a lack of credibility”.
“I will tell you this story, it’s true. Last Wednesday when we discussed with our new colleague from Greece in the Eurogroup, “Yanis, you are raising your minimum wage. But it is difficult for me to explain that we pay for you to raise your minimum wage and social assistance on higher levels than we have, but we have to pay for you”. And his reaction was so disastrous. He said, “It may be that you can live with that amount in your country, but not in Greece,”“ Wolfgang Schaeuble, German Finance Minister told reporters.
Have the people of Athens any comprehension of the German stance? “Schaeuble knows how to speak in a language Athens can understand,” roar