LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With QuoteGreece is much more socialistic than Germany is. I believe Greeks get old age pensions at only 62, whereas, the Germans receive pensions at 67.
Maybe Germans should delay the retirements until 70 to bail out the Greeks?
Soros Says Germany Needs to Pay Up If EU to Survive
Soros Says Germany Needs to Pay Up If EU to Survive
George Soros
George Soros, the billionaire financier, says he thinks the euro and the European Union itself are at risk of breaking up if Germany refuses to play its traditional role and make concessions, Reuters reported, citing an interview conducted with Italian newspaper.
“The Germans have always made the concessions needed to advance the European Union, when people were looking for a deal. Not any more,” Mr. Soros told Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Thursday.
“That’s why the European project is stalled. And if it can’t go ahead from here, it will go backwards. It’s important to understand that if you don’t make the next steps forward for the euro, the euro will go to pieces and the European Union too,” he said.
Mr. Soros, who is speaking at a variety of events in Italy this week, said the E.U. needed a more flexible mechanism on deficit cuts so that countries did not have to cut public spending so drastically. “We need a sort of European Monetary Fund, which would make the adjustment less painful,” he said.
His comments echo those he made to The Financial Times last weekend, before an announcement by euro zone finance ministers of the terms of a support package for Greece.
“It is 50-50 whether the euro zone breaks up. The damage that break up would cause is so great, that I think that as people realize it, they will pull back from the brink,” Mr. Soros told The Financial Times in an interview.
“Unfortunately there are problems with Germany because it does not want to be the deep pockets helping out the profligate southerners which got into trouble.”
Source
Greece is much more socialistic than Germany is. I believe Greeks get old age pensions at only 62, whereas, the Germans receive pensions at 67.
Maybe Germans should delay the retirements until 70 to bail out the Greeks?
Greece asks for talks, closer to aid request: Financial News - Yahoo! FinanceIn a letter to the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF, Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou proposed discussions on "a multi-year program of economic policies."
He said this "could be supported with financial assistance from the euro-area member states and the IMF, if the Greek authorities were to decide to request such assistance." The IMF announced it would send a team to Athens on Monday, which a Greek government official said would be accompanied by teams from the European Commission and the ECB.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks