Wolfgang Schaeuble

With mission chiefs in Athens to launch the third review of Greece's third international bailout on Monday, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said the leftist-led administration will plug any budget gap should one arise.

Greece's bailout program will proceed as planned, eurozone financial leaders said Monday, shrugging off concerns that the new German government may harden its stance on the aid plan and debt relief for Athens.

Greece's bailout program will proceed as planned, eurozone financial leaders said Monday, shrugging off concerns that the new German government may harden its stance on the aid plan and debt relief for Athens.

Germany's outgoing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said that a proposal in 2015 that Greece take a "timeout" from the euro had been supported by the majority of eurozone finance ministers.

"That was the majority in the eurogroup, not me personally," Schaeuble said in an interview with the Financial Times published Sunday.

Ongoing developments in Germany are cause for concern at home. Athens must make sure it does not end up hostage to the power games being played inside Germany's next coalition.

The leader of Germany's Free Democrats (FDP), Christian Lindner, seen as a likely successor at the finance ministry if his pro-business party enters a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), has criticized outgoing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble for not being tough enough on Greece.

There was no celebratory mood in Athens as the news filtered through last week that Wolfgang Schaeuble is set to move aside as finance minister after eight years in the job. The switch in Schaeuble's political career comes as Greece remains under a program and with Athens prioritizing getting out of the bailout next year.

There's much to criticize about Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany's outgoing finance minister: It can be said that he is obsessive and spiteful, and that his humor at the expense of Greece often bordered on sadism. That he - and Chancellor Angela Merkel - did very little to resolve the Greek crisis.

Given that Germany is the most powerful country in the eurozone and exercises complete control over the common currency bloc while also entertaining ambitions of a more international role, the magnitude of the defeat sustained by the established right-wing in Sunday's elections was much greater than the percentage collectively secured by the Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Party. <

Germans head to the polls this Sunday in a dull and almost indifferent atmosphere that is a far cry from the emotions and tensions that characterized the Austrian, Dutch and French elections. Perhaps boredom is a side effect of stability. However, serious issues in the European Union have been left hanging.