Germany set to approve Greek bailout extension

Germany's parliament appears set to approve an extension of Greece's financial bailout. All eurozone member states must ratify the extension for it to take effect before Athens runs out of funds at the end of the month.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) voted overwhelmingly in a test ballot on Thursday to approve the proposed extension of Greece's bailout.

News agencies cited CDU sources who said just 22 of the conservative party's parliamentarians voted against extending the bailout, while five abstained. Together, the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, CSU, have a total of 311 seats in the lower house Bundestag.

The Social Democrats (SPD), who are the junior partner in Merkel's so-called grand coalition voted unanimously to approve the extension in their test vote.

The test polls mean the extension is all but certain to be approved when lawmakers vote on the proposed extension in the Bundestag on Friday, where the CDU and SPD hold around 80 percent of the seats.

Schäuble vs. Greece

Germany's Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has been critical of Greece's proposals regarding renegotiated terms of its financial bailout, which has led to tensions between Berlin and Athens.

In Wednesday's edition of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo - the first regular issue since a January terror attack on the paper's Paris offices - Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis gave an interview frankly illustrating his views of Schäuble and his eurozone companions, who support austerity measures in Greece.

"During the Middle Ages, 'doctors' prescribed bloodletting, which often caused the patient's health to deteriorate, to which the 'doctor' responded with other bloodlettings," Varoufakis said in the paper. "That's the type of 'reasoning' that today perfectly illustrates Europe's attitude: the more austerity fails, the more it is prescribed."

According to sources within the CDU quoted by new agencies, Schäuble described Varoufakis' comments as "less than helpful" at the CDU meeting on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Schäuble said it was "not easy" for him to let Greece have the extension, considering how there was "much doubt in Germany" as to whether Athens will pay back the more than 40 billion euros it owes Berlin. Greece's proposed reforms must be "substantiated with numbers," Schäuble told German media on Wednesday, otherwise they "don't count."

Merkel struck a more positive note than Schäuble, however, by saying that while there is still "a lot of work ahead of us," she said she believes her government and its Greek counterpart had found a good starting point for negotiations.

mz/sms (AP, AFP, dpa)