Germany Signals more Aid Needed for Greece

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble signaled that Greece may need additional help as the country’s most-read newspaper slammed a rescue accord as a “never-ending story” financed by German taxpayers.

Euro-area governments may provide additional funding through the European Union structural fund and further interest- payment reduction as long as Greece meets all its obligations under the agreement, Schaeuble wrote in a letter to German lawmakers obtained by Bloomberg News. Legislators in the lower house, or Bundestag, will vote on the measure as soon as tomorrow.

They may confront increased public resistance as Bild- Zeitung, a tabloid that’s called in the past for Greece’s exit from the currency union, pilloried yesterday’s late-night agreement in Brussels to ease terms on emergency aid for Greece.

“The Greek patient is beyond help,” Bild said in a commentary, adding that the ever-rising costs were falling on German taxpayers. “One hardly needs to imagine the worst scenario: the patient dies, the paramedic goes bust.”

German lawmakers are set to approve the new terms of aid for Greece, where the European debt crisis originated over three years ago. Euro-area finance ministers also agreed to scale back debt by engineering a Greek bond buyback.

The letter comes as euro nations began to tally the cost of the rescue, partly from the European Central Bank’s steering of profit from its Greek bond holdings back to Greece.

Bloomberg

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