Why is #Germany so tough on #Greece? Look back 25 years | Dirk Laabs | Comment is free | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/17/germany-greece-wolfgang-schauble-bailout?CMP=share_btn_tw
The situation in the former GDR was not too dissimilar from that in Greece when Syriza swept to power: East Germans had just held their first free elections in history, only months after the Berlin Wall fell, and some of the delegates from East Berlin dreamed of a new political system, a “third way” between the west’s market economy and the east’s socialist system – while also having no idea how to pay the bills anymore.
The West Germans, on the other side of the table, had the momentum, the money and a plan: everything the state of East Germany owned was to be absorbed by the West German system and then quickly sold to private investors to recoup some of the money East Germany would need in the coming years. In other words: Schäuble and his team wanted collateral.