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    Germans overwhelmingly oppose Greek bailout - poll

    BERLIN (Reuters) - Germans overwhelmingly oppose further aid for Greece, according to opinion poll released on Sunday, one day ahead of a vote in parliament on a new Greek bailout package where Chancellor Angela Merkel may be forced to rely on opposition support.

    The poll by the Emnid Institute in Bild am Sonntag newspaper found 62 percent oppose a new 130 billion ($175 billion) rescue package while 33 percent are in favour. A similar Emnid poll in September found 53 percent opposed and 43 percent in favour.

    Merkel's centre-right coalition faces a testing vote in parliament on Monday when at least a dozen deputies are expected vote against the measure. It should still pass with ease because opposition parties will vote for it.

    But the prospect of the ruling bloc failing to win a majority on its own would be a humiliating setback for Merkel, with some analysts and opposition leaders warning it could endanger her coalition.

    Further signs of tension in the coalition emerged on Saturday when Merkel's Interior Minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, became the first member of her government to openly call for Greece to leave the euro zone [ID:nL5E8DP0O3].

    Merkel's government has 330 seats in the 620-seat parliament so Merkel can afford no more than 19 rebels if she is to deliver the 311-seat majority without relying on the opposition.

    In a September 27 vote, there were 15 rebels in the coalition and Merkel got 315 votes from her coalition deputies.

    'RESCUE ONLY BUYS TIME'

    Wolfgang Bosbach, a respected member of parliament in Merkel's Christian Democrats, told Reuters he planned to vote against the Greek rescue package on Monday because it will not help resolve Greece's lack of economic competitiveness.

    "My fear is we're only buying time with this rescue package and yet will be taking on more risk," said Bosbach, who also voted against the previous measure.

    "My fear is that the basic problems won't be resolved. On top of that, the drastic savings efforts that are necessary for Greece will further choke off the economy and lead to even higher unemployment."

    The Emnid poll in Bild am Sonntag also found that two-thirds of Germans believe a Greek state insolvency is unavoidable and only 31 percent believe it can be averted.

    Germans, who are making the largest financial contribution to the euro zone bailout to Athens, are growing increasingly impatient with what Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble recently described as a "bottomless pit" in Greece.

    At the same time, there is a growing awareness in Germany, Europe's leading economy, that its own prosperity is at risk as the debt crisis sucks in other countries and stifles demand within the currency bloc for German exports.

    German criticism of Greece has reopened wounds in Greece dating back to World War Two. Protesters in Athens burned a German flag earlier this month while Greek newspapers have portrayed Merkel and Schaeuble in Nazi uniform.

    Merkel is opposed to Greece leaving the euro zone but her Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), face a difficult state vote in 2013 and have been raising the volume on calls for Greece to quit.

    Yet until Friedrich's comments on Saturday none of the three CSU ministers in her 15-member cabinet had dared express that view in public. Friedrich said Greece's chances of restoring its fiscal health would be greater outside the euro.

    "Greece's chances to regenerate itself and become more competitive are certainly greater outside the currency union than they are if it stays in the euro zone," Friedrich told Der Spiegel magazine. "I'm not saying that Greece should be thrown out but rather to create incentives that it can't say 'no' to."

    (Reporting By Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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    19 comments

    • Voter  •  Denver, United States  •  2 months ago
      Germany it's time to confront the banksters that set up this debt that can't be repaid. The games that paid the top management folks bonuses, while Greece slid further from being able to pay, were unrealistic from the beginning. Maybe it's time to hold the banksters accountable.
    • D  •  2 months ago
      I love Greece and holiday there 3 times a year, The Greek government should put a tax on the thousands of yachts in the marinas all over Greece, the tax would raise Billions,there are a lot of people on the fiddle and now is the time for them to help.
      • bill w 2 months ago
        like you D i love GREECE to.
      • Wisava 2 months ago
        IFNero fiddled while Rome burned?,Athens burns while the Brussels Beauracrats fiddle the books,hence Greece goes bust.
    • geordie tree  •  North Shields, United Kingdom  •  2 months ago
      We have heard,for months, about a super bailout fund for the so called firewall. There is no evidence to suggest it has even been initiated. There have been plenty of promises but no apparent funds anywhere. Merkel and Sarkosy dont seem cosy at all now. Perhaps it is because they at last realise a Greek default is a stonewall certainty.
    • Deeps  •  Birkenhead, United Kingdom  •  2 months ago
      All this to bail out a people who regard it as a duty to avoid paying tax. Keep it under a mattress, bury it in the garden, pile it into a property but under no circumstances pay any tax on it. They used to boast to me often enough about it and it is coming home to roost. I only wish the rest of Europe would wake up and sound the death knell of the single currency, it's a busted flush. Pack it in and most of all leave us alone to do our own thing, we'll still be buying your shoit instead of making our own anyway.
    • R  •  2 months ago
      germany you are being led by the nose, your leader is wrong. come on old germany sort her out. the way mercal is playing the saviour of the euro ,will bankrupt you.
    • MT  •  Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic  •  2 months ago
      Putting aside that all politicians are corrupt with hidden aganda's if this was your own personal finance you would not get this many chances to have a bailout this was always going to happen and will not stop at Greece. Countries politicians MEP's the like only concern themselves with lining their own pockets and do not care what the people of countries think they should remember they are put in power by the people for the people and should give them the chance to say how they feel and act on it. So good for the German people to say enough is enough the UK should act the same and leave the Euro!!!! Greed will stop it happening unfortunatley???
    • Panda  •  2 months ago
      good for them i agree with the Germans on this
      i in turn hope they agree with me on this that the euro zone and the e.u itself be dismantled
      and regarded as nothing more than a failed experiment and no more aid will be offered or given to any country that was or is in the euro zone also all legal foreign workers that wish to remain
      in the country they have settled will be allowed to on taking up that country's citizenship and passport however no new immigrants will be allowed or tolerated full border controls will be resumed by all countries of the former e.u and it goes without saying that the European parliament will be dissolved permanently this will cause some outrage when read and i understand that but short term pain for long term gain
      and anyhow i really don't give a fig what you think anyhow ha ha ha
    • johnc  •  2 months ago
      Merkel is better at spending and wasting money than my wife ....
    • johnc  •  2 months ago
      Most germans just want a decent job, a decent life with no stress. They are not all jack-boot ego-maniacs like merkel.
    • gerwyn  •  2 months ago
      AT LAST ...... GREECE CANNOT STAY IN THE EURO THEY ARE STONEY BROKE...... & UNLESS THE GREEK TAX DODGERS & BLACK MARKETS STOP THEY ARE GOING ONLY ONE WAY DDDDOOOOOWWWWWNNNN HILL RAPIDO
    • Wisava  •  Southampton, United Kingdom  •  2 months ago
      Like buisness alot of buisness is done round a golf course,and after a good game its back to the clubhouse/Brussels,Merkels Untrerschifff for a Greek paycheck may prove to be her political death warrant.
      Well this political game of European golf Merkell has got herself in the bunker!,a bit like Eva did in 1945.I feel for the apathy of the Greek people,but I feel the anger of the German people being stuffed by there leader,a scenario that is rampant across europe.
    • Cheery !  •  Hounslow, United Kingdom  •  2 months ago
      'bout time somebody pulled the plug on this fiasco !!!
    • Kieran Murphy  •  Londonderry, United Kingdom  •  2 months ago
      The Deutsche Volks are right
      Get the ECB to print QE 60 billon as a write down in the 360 billion leaving 300 billion
      and let the Greeks pay 200 billlion 14 billion repayments over 20 years to 2032 at 4%
      and their Government National debt with perestroika would reduced to 100 billion and make sure they borrow no more than 50 billion in top of that
      and would be around 60% perestroika Greek National Debt of their GDP
      • Robert 2 months ago
        Aye.And an hours rain now would do more good in five minutes by the way than a weeks could ever do in a month of sundays at any other time of the year.
    • David  •  2 months ago
      The Germans are against anything which effects the money in their pocket but it wont make any difference they should remember they are in the EU and public opposition is something which is simply ignored. If we talk about voting it will just be done over and over again until it agrees with what the euro crazies want. Germany arent interested in ruling europe they are interested in their paypackets and the euro is the best deal for them, it gives them artificial competetiveness which the mark would not, so they want to defend it. They will defend the eurozone only as long as it provides them with export opportunities.
    • Iain  •  Manchester, United Kingdom  •  2 months ago
      One big set up.
    • Billy  •  2 months ago
      Grumpy
      a rather silly comment just dragging up old sores and useing them to enforce your thoughts on others.

      Time to move on, leave it behind, learn the lessons but not to keep on with the same old same old retoric. Its quite frankly old hat and boring.
    • grumpy  •  Barnsley, United Kingdom  •  2 months ago
      GERMANY. if you want to rule europe which you tryed to do in two world wars. THEN PAY UP!!
    • Frances  •  Reading, United Kingdom  •  2 months ago
      now in Barbados:
      Return all the Greek treasures to Greece
    • Darren  •  2 months ago
      Isn't being in the Eurozone supposed to be great for all participants while those outside of it struggle? In which case, Greece (& others) should have economic prosperity that's out of sight. Instead, the opposite is happening. More and more countries in the Eurozone are steadily becoming less and less economically competitive, and are falling into their own personal debt ridden hells, which in turn require austerity measures that hammer their economies (and thus the people who find themselves increasingly unable to make a living for themselves) still further.

      The only ones really benefiting from the deal seem to be Germany, whose high command rules the rest of Europe with a red tape clad iron fist.

      Now how much earlier would we have had this present state of affairs if Hitler had been an economist instead of a warmonger?
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