German lawmakers approve extension of bailout program for Greece

By Patrick Donahue and Brian Parkin

German lawmakers approved an extension of Greece?s loan program after Chancellor Angela Merkel?s coalition staved off dissent from bailout-weary members in its own ranks.

With Merkel?s government holding a majority of almost four- fifths and opposition lawmakers adding their votes, 542 voted to approve the measure, 32 voted against and 13 abstained.

?It?s not about new billions for Greece, it?s not about any change in the program,? Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, in Berlin. ?It?s about offering more time to allow this program to be completed successfully.?

Schaeuble sought to win over lawmakers exasperated with the anti-austerity government in Athens led by Alexis Tsipras after Greece won a four-month reprieve this week from euro-area finance ministers. The additional time gives Tsipras, who has pledged to undo five years of austerity he says has wrecked the Greek economy, until the end of June to cobble together a plan for the bloc?s most indebted country.

Klaus-Peter Willsch, a Christian Democratic lawmaker who repeatedly opposed bailout votes during the European debt crisis, said he rejected the Greek extension.

?The problems in Greece have to do with the fact that governments have mismanaged for decades in an irresponsible way and took on debt without asking what happens tomorrow,? Willsch told the Bundestag. ?Greece has to try its fortune outside the euro; the euro area has to be able to breath.?

European Solidarity

Schaeuble exhorted lawmakers in his coalition, who have insisted that Greece must hew to the recipe of budget cutting and labor-market reforms, to show European solidarity. He made a reference to the ...