Germany's highest court on Saturday rejected a request by a group of academics to block the immediate release of Berlin's multi-billion-euro loan to debt-stricken Greece.
Germany's cabinet has approved its contribution to the Eurozone and IMF bailout of Greece. The German parliament is set to pass the legislation later this week to allow its loan—worth 22.4 billion Euros over three years—to be paid.
Euro zone members and the IMF have agreed to a 110 billion Euro (146.2 billion US dollars) three-year bailout package to rescue Greece's embattled economy. In return for the loans, Greece will make major austerity cuts which Prime Minister George Papandreou said involved “great sacrifices”.
A German court said Friday the government had no legal basis to keep under wraps secret files on Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi architect of the Holocaust, potentially paving the way for their release.
The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that the crisis in Greece could spread throughout Europe. Dominique Strauss-Kahn said that every day lost in resolving Greece's problems risks spreading the impact “far away”.
Greece will not get its multi-billion Euro aid package until it commits to bigger economic sacrifices, Germany’s finance minister warned over the weekend.
Greece has formally asked for the activation of an EU-IMF financial rescue package to help pull the debt-ridden economy out of its crisis. It had hoped that just the promise of EU support, agreed last month, would have been enough to reassure markets and help its recovery.