Bundesbank

 Weidmann increases pressure on Frankfurt to toughen its stance

By Yiannis Papadoyiannis

The head of the Bundesbank expressed serious concern about providing continued emergency funding to Greek banks in talks with his peers this week, a person familiar with the discussion said.

The euro will not fall if Greece quits the single currency area, German central bank chief Jens Weidmann said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday.

Time is running out for Greece to reach a deal on its debts with its eurozone backers, the president of Germany's Bundesbank warned on Monday, urging Athens to act to avoid a default that could tip it out of the eurozone.

By Francesco Canepa

The risk of Greece becoming insolvent is rising by the day as time runs out for Athens to strike a deal with its international backers, the president of Germany's Bundesbank said on Thursday.

The risk of Greece becoming insolvent is "increasing by the day," the head of the German central bank or Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, said on Thursday.

The situation in Greece is critical but the direct danger to European banks is relatively small, a senior official at Germany's Bundesbank told a newspaper on Monday.

Α mini scrum of top European leaders on Friday dampened the leftist Greek government’s hopes for a bailout deal in the next few days, despite smiles and “positive leaks” in the wake of a late-night meeting the previous evening between Angela Merkel, Francoise Hollande and Alexis Tsipras.

EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has reportedly drafted a compromise deal to break a deadlock between institutional lenders and the increasingly bewildered radical leftist government in Athens, although the latter indirectly replied on Monday that it was unaware of such an initiative.

May 18 Greece's government should stick to earlier commitments and present reform proposals to help avoid the country becoming insolvent, Germany's central bank warned on Monday.

In its monthly report, written by economists and officials at the bank, the Bundesbank used unusually frank language to describe what it called the «worrying» situation in Greece.