Wolfgang Schäuble

German Minister Wolfgang Schauble remained resolute in his position that there will be no restructuring for the Greek debt. The German Minister added that he wants a deal between Greece and its lenders within the upcoming week.”It is a common position of all parties involved that we should reach a deal in the next week’, said Schauble from Washington, Saturday.

The Greek government’s efforts to convince its lenders in Washington for a timely positive review on the adjustment program and exploit differences between the IMF and the EU institutions seems to have fallen through.

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos had a series of meetings in Washington during the IMF-World Bank summit in an effort to present his views on the progress of negotiations between the country and its lenders. On the sidelines of the Summit, Tsakalotos met with IMF Director Christine Lagarde and agreed that the IMF representatives would return to Athens next week.

According to Bloomberg news agency, negotiations between Greece and its creditors, the European institutions and the IMF (Quartet), will drag on till summer, when Greece will have to pay a large part of its debt.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble said discussions of a restructuring of the Greek debt is distracting from the main focus of implementing the necessary reforms in the country.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble made it clear that there would be no concessions to Greece regarding the debt relief, in an interview to Reuters. ‘Last summer’s agreement is clear: if the first review of the program is successfully completed and we need to do something with debt sustainability, then we will do it’, said Schauble.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble stressed that Greece should find some counter measures, if it could not cut pensions, Wednesday. On the matter of the sustainability of the Greek debt he said that it was ‘something, unfortunately that would be discussed later’. Schauble underlined that Athens should try to achieve its aim and close the assessment by the institutions in April.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble told reporters the EU was always generous to Greece before attending the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels, Monday. The German minister stressed that the meeting would not focus solely on the progress of Greece. He added that he would support the return of the institutions to Athens in the upcoming week to resume its appraisal of the Greek program.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Turkey "rightfully" wanted to share the burden of more than 2.5 million migrants with the European Union. 

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble reiterated that Athens should quickly implement the agreed and proceed to the review of the Greek program so as not to risk the economic recovery process.