Outgoing German Finance Minister and newly-elected speaker of Germany’s lower house of parliament Wolfgang Schaeuble said in an interview with Greece’s Skai TV that the country should stop blaming others for its problems.
“When you ask others for loans, you cannot insult them for granting the loans. It doesn’t make sense. Greece’s problems are Greece’s problems,” Schaeuble told Alexis Papachelas.
“Obviously in Greece I was a bogeyman,” Schaeuble said of attitudes of people in Greece, adding that this “saddened him.”
“That saddened me somewhat, because nobody ever wanted to harm Greece,” he said, pointing specifically to some specifics implemented by Alexis Tsipras’ Syriza party.
Greece decided to cut pensions instead of taxing wealthy ship-owners— contrary to what the leftist Syriza party promised before elections, Schaeuble cited as an example.
“This wasn’t a German parliament decision, it was a Greek government decision,” he said.
Watch the complete interview (in Greek and German with Greek subtitles here.
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