Foreign media are responsible for spreading confusion about Germany 's attitude to the Greek debt problem, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Friday.

Schaeuble told a press conference that his comments in an interview published Thursday by the German newspaper Die Welt had been misrepresented by English-language media to mean that the country would push for an early restructuring of Greek debt.

He repeated that the 2010 agreement covering the rescue deal agreed by the European Union, International Monetary Fund and Greece required the sustainability of Greece 's debt position to be reviewed every three months, and that the next review is due in June.

He avoided giving a more direct answer to the question of whether the German government would urge a restructuring.

Only minutes earlier, German Deputy Foreign Minister Werner Hoyer had been quoted by the news agency Bloomberg as saying that a Greek restructuring "would not be a disaster."

Schaeuble also complained that the German press had misrepresented a report by the Federal Court of Accounts in quantifying Germany's liability under the future European Stability Mechanism, which he insisted would be capped at around EUR190 billion.

Schaeuble was talking before a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 leading advanced and emerging economies. The meeting is coinciding with the Spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Schaeuble said Germany wanted to draw up a clear plan for the inclusion of new currencies in the IMF's quasi-currency, the Special Drawing Right, "reflecting the progress to a multipolar global currency system" and a broader redistribution of economic weight in the world.

That progress, implying a loss of pre-eminence by the dollar, has alarmed elements of US society. Schaeuble added, however, that he expected the dollar to keep its "important position, all the more insofar as the U.S. can deal with its problems."

Outgoing Deutsche Bundesbank President Axel Weber, also attending the briefing, said the process by which emerging markets account for more and more of the world economy is irreversible and said that "whoever doesn't acknowledge this is in denial."

Weber endorsed the expansion of the SDR basket, which includes only four currencies--the dollar, the yen, the euro and sterling--but stressed that full convertibility is a pre-condition for inclusion.

Weber struck an upbeat note on the outlook for the German economy, saying the central bank's forecast of 2.5% growth this year is "well insured to the downside" and adding that gross domestic product could grow by between 0.8% and 1.0% in the first quarter alone, before an inevitable moderation in the following quarters.

He stressed that Germany 's economy, by virtue of its openness, remained dependent on the health of the world economy, despite a growing contribution to growth from domestic demand. In this context he drew particular attention to uncertainties arising from the natural and nuclear disasters in Japan , and from increasing inflationary pressures.

He said that inflation in Germany "may top 3%" in some months during the second half of this year, before moderating.

As reported earlier Friday, inflation in the euro zone rose to 2.7% in year-on-year terms in March, amid signs that price pressures which started in the energy and food sectors may be passing through into other sectors.

Διαβάστε ακόμα