Germans overwhelmingly opposed offering financial support to Greece as it
struggles to control its public sector deficit and are strikingly more
hostile than other Europeans, including the British, the FT/Harris poll
showed. Almost a third of Germans believed Greece should be asked to leave
the eurozone.

Further highlighting flagging support for the euro, some 40 per cent of
Germans also thought Europe’s biggest economy would be better off outside
the single currency – a significantly higher level of scepticism than in
France, Spain or Italy.

The results follow a warning on Sunday by Ms Merkel against raising “false
expectations” in financial markets of a eurozone bail-out package for Greece.

Harris PollIn an interview on German radio which appeared to put her at odds
with José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, she insisted that
Greece had not asked for money and no decision had been taken.

The subject was not even on the agenda for a summit of European Union leaders
in Brussels on Thursday, she said.

Barroso
Mr Barroso issued a statement on Friday that called on EU leaders to reach an
explicit agreement this week. He warned that a lack of clarity was
unsettling the markets. A likely solution would be a co-ordinated package of
bilateral loans.

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, said on Sunday he was “absolutely
in favour” of EU help for Greece.

Ms Merkel’s interview is understood to have been recorded before Mr Barroso’s
intervention, but it still represents the strongly held view in Berlin that
Greece must put its drastic budget austerity programme into effect before
any financial support can be agreed.

“I do not see Greece needs money at the moment and the Greek government has
confirmed that,” Ms Merkel said. “We do not want to create unrest in the
markets by raising false expectations.”

Tough sanctions
The German chancellor reiterated the German opinion that tougher sanctions
were needed to police budget discipline in the eurozone, including a view
that countries could be expelled from membership if they persistently
offended against the stability and growth pact.

Berlin is also fending off calls for its economic policies to be directed more
at boosting domestic demand with the aim of reducing the country’s large
trade surplus.

In a letter to the FT published on Monday, Ulrich Wilhelm, government
spokesman, said the discussion “ignores the fact that Europe as a whole must
become more competitive” and warned that “a less stability orientated policy
in Germany would damage the eurozone as a whole”.

His comments amount to implicit criticism of Christine Lagarde, France’s
finance minister, who asked last week in an FT interview if countries with
surpluses could “do a little something?”

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