Loading ...NEW YORK (MarketWatch) —It seemed like wishful thinking from the start, but German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble made it official Tuesday: There won’t be any quick resolution of the latest version of the Greek debt crisis.
European equities and U.S. stock index futures got an added lift Tuesday morning as headlines and rumors floated the prospect of a six-month extension of Greece’s bailout program, which would presumably allow the country’s new antiausterity government to negotiate a new pact with its creditors while avoiding default.
Then Schaeuble stepped in, telling reporters at the Group of 20 meeting in Istanbul that such speculation was the stuff of fantasy. There would be no hasty deal reached Wednesday when the so-called Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers gather for an emergency meeting in Brussels. See: Remember these dates as Greece marches toward potential default.
Talk of any sort of “bridging” was “false,” he said, according to Dow Jones Newswires.
Moreover, he signaled that Berlin hasn’t budged when it comes to its demand that Greece stick to the elements of its existing bailout program, rejecting the newly-elected Greek government’s call to scrap the bailout and end much of the austerity that’s accompanied the crushing, years-long depression that’s followed the country’s financial implosion in 2010.
If Greece doesn’t want a new program, “then that’s it,” Schaeuble said, according to Reuters.