By PATRICK MCGROARTY, COSTAS PARIS and ALKMAN GRANITSAS
The Wall Street Journal.
BERLIN—Germany's parliament Friday approved a motion that private bond holders and the International Monetary Fund bear partial responsibility for any further aid to Greece, putting further pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel's government to pursue measures that the European Central Bank has resisted.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told lawmakers before his center-right coalition voted to support the motion that making private bond holders bear more risk in the case of a Greek default or restructuring was "unavoidable," and that it was hard to know how much more help Greece would need.
Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble
Mr. Schäuble acknowledged that the ECB has discouraged Germany's calls for private investors to face losses from a Greek restructuring. On Thursday he acknowledged that France shares those concerns.
But Germany was working together with the ECB, the IMF and the European Commission to find a compromise that would include a "fair risk participation" for bond holders.