By Yann Le Guernigou and Costas Pitas
PARIS/ATHENS, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Debt-laden Greece and EU paymaster Germany struck hardline postures ahead of a crucial meeting of euro zone finance ministers on Monday on the future of an unpopular international bailout for Athens, but France called for compromise.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble maintained a typically tough line, telling German radio Greece had lived beyond its means for a long time and there was no appetite in Europe for giving it any more money without guarantees.
French Finance Minister Michel Sapin hinted at a slight easing of euro zone opposition to Greek requests for an end to austerity and a new debt deal, saying Europe must respect the political change in Athens.
Radical leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government was elected last month on a pledge to scrap the bailout, reverse austerity measures and get rid of supervision by the hated “troika” of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF.
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Any new financing program, on the other hand, might require several national parliamentary ratifications and could also bring Germany’s Constitutional Court into play.
Among those requiring a parliamentary vote on a new bailout are Germany, Slovakia, Estonia and Finland, all identified by one veteran of EU meetings as part of a hard core of opponents to Greece’s plan.
The Eurogroup’s main debate will revolve around how to fund Greece until any new debt deal. Athens wants to reduce the primary budget surplus before debt service it is required to run, scrap privatizations, raise the minimum wage and spending on the poor, and reverse some labor reforms.
Greece said on Saturday that it was reviewing a 1.2 billion- euro deal for Germany’s Fraport to run 14 regional airports, one of the biggest privatization deals since Greece’s debt crisis began in 2009. It has also pulled the plug on the privatization of the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki. ($1 = 0.8785 euros) (Additional reporting by Michael Nienaber, Andrew Callus and Francesca Landini; Writing by Jeremy Gaunt; Editing by Paul Taylor)
