SPLIT Merkel vs. Schäuble

The EU’s showdown with Greece is bringing to the surface longstanding differences between Angela Merkel and her tough-minded finance minister, complicating efforts at a solution, reports FT.

Merkel has for months pushed for a deal with Alexis Tsipras, the Greek premier, to extend the bailout but Wolfgang Schäuble remains sceptical that Athens will ever deliver the reforms necessary to survive in the currency union. Schäuble has been arguing in private that policy makers should also at least consider investing their energies in orchestrating an orderly exit for Greece.

The veteran finance minister’s loyalty to the chancellor has long kept the argument at bay. But with Athens fast running out of money to pay its bills, and Merkel facing the most consequential decision of her decade-long rule, their differences are becoming more pronounced, says FT..

"There is a split between Schäuble and Merkel because Schäuble wants the Greeks out of the euro and Merkel wants them in,” said an MP from the centre-left Social Democrats, part of the governing coalition. “At the end he will be loyal, but he is doing everything to make the process difficult.”

-RW