No haircut for Greece but maybe third bailout, Schaeuble tells Kathimerini

 'Anyone who wants to stay in the eurozone must follow the rules,' German finance minister says German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble pictured at Zappeio Hall.

By Xenia Kounalaki

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble does not rule out the possibility of a third bailout deal for Greece in order to cover the country's funding gap over the next two years. Though he is reluctant to spell out the size of such a loan, he does say it would be “much smaller” than the first two the country received from its international creditors.

Schaeuble detests the term “haircut” for describing debt reductions and repeats the phrase “Never again” two or three times during an interview with Kathimerini this week, when he was in Athens for the Ecofin meeting. He does not rule out, however, the possibility of another form of debt restructuring.

He talks about his discussions with Evangelos Venizelos when the latter was Greek finance minister and admits that he was in Athens – just as German Chencellor Angela Merkel is due to be next week – in order to show German support for Greece.

As far as the leftist opposition SYRIZA party is concerned, Schaeuble has a clear message for its leadership: “Anyone who wants to stay in the eurozone must follow the rules.”

The biggest question for Greece after the European elections is how it proposes to cover the funding gap for 2015-16. I know that you are exploring various options, but which is the likeliest? A third bailout?

We already said after the approval of the second program for Greece that we would explore the options at some point in the middle of this year, once we had the necessary data and could check it. In the case that further...