German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected any renegotiation of Greek debt after last week's election that brought an anti-austerity party into power in Athens.
Merkel said banks and creditors that extended Greece bailout loans to keep the government from defaulting on its sovereign debt have already must draw the line on already substantial concessions. But she did say in an interview with the German daily Berliner Morgenpost that she wanted Greece to stay in the eurozone.
"We — Germany and the other European partners — will now wait and see what concept the new Greek government comes to us with," she was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
However, Germany and the other EU partners had already forgiven billions of euros lent by private creditors, she said.
"I don't see a further debt haircut," Merkel said, according to The Associated Press.
The European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, known as the troika has agreed to a $270 billion bailout with the previous Greek government.
However, as the BBC reports, Greece's new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, "has refused to work with the troika to renegotiate the bailout terms and has already begun to roll back the austerity measures the creditors had demanded of the previous government."
Merkel's comments echoed those of Germany's Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who warned Greece on Friday that it would not back-down on repayment. "[We] are difficult to blackmail," he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Germany
Greece