Merkel Reins In Greek Exit Talk in Euro’s Decisive Phase

Chancellor Angela Merkel told officials in her coalition calling for a Greek exit from the euro to “weigh their words,” as she signaled a renewed determination to keep the single currency intact.

Asked about comments by a party leader calling for Greece to leave the 17-nation single currency, Merkel told ARD television that such comments were damaging as crisis fighting reaches a “decisive phase.” Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the governing Bavarian Christian Social Union, told Bild newspaper that Greece wouldn’t be part of the euro in 2013.
“Everybody should weigh their words very carefully,” Merkel told ARD yesterday in Berlin. The Greek government under Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is undertaking “serious efforts” to reduce its debt, she said, and reiterated Germany’s desire to stand by the country where the crisis originated.
Euro leaders are preparing for a critical month in the three-year-old crisis that will involve the formulation of a European Central Bank bond-buying plan, a progress report by Greece’s international creditors and a looming German court decision on bailout funding on Sept. 12. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann opened a new line of attack over the ECB’s plans, warning in Der Spiegel that monetary financing of budgets can “become addictive like a drug.”

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-08-26/merkel-reins-in-greek-exit-talk-as-euro-enters-decisive-phase#r=bloomberg