{{Germany does not want a “German Europe” and believes no single country can take a leading role, yet Berlin does have a special responsibility for the path to exiting the euro zone crisis, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble wrote in an editorial.}}<\/p>\n
“It is a completely absurd idea, to think that the Germans want to play the role of leader in Europe… We do not want a ‘German Europe’,” Schaeuble wrote in a piece to be published in five European newspapers on Saturday, and made available in German on Friday.<\/p>\n
But he added, “at the same time Germany believes it has a special responsibility for the mutually agreed pathway for solving the euro zone crisis. We assume this leadership responsibility above all in conjunction with our French friends.”<\/p>\n
Much discussion about Germany during the euro zone crisis has been contradictory, he noted, with some criticizing Berlin for doing too much, others too little.<\/p>\n
“It is a misconception to think that in Europe one country should or could lead. Germany’s reserve isn’t only because of our guilt-laden history. The particular political composition of Europe simply does not lend itself to the notion of one nation leading and others following,” he added.<\/p>\n
“Germans least of all could tolerate a ‘German Europe’. We want rather to see a Germany helping economic recovery in Europe, without itself becoming weak in the process,” he said.<\/p>\n
Sound financing and creating the right conditions to keep pace with global competition were not German ideas, Schaeuble said, but rather the necessary steps for a secure future.<\/p>\n
Schaeuble visited Athens on Thursday in a trip presented by the Greek government as a show of support by one of its biggest creditors. But he also bluntly told Greeks to stop asking for a second debt write-down following a restructuring last year that imposed massive losses on private holders of Greek bonds.<\/p>\n
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