The politically toxic subject of financial support for Greece burst into Germany’s election campaign yesterday as Wolfgang Sch?uble, finance minister, acknowledged for the first time Athens would need a third bailout.
With barely a policy difference to separate Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats from the main opposition Social Democrats in their approach to the eurozone debt crisis, the subject had been delicately avoided in the run-up to the September 22 general election.
But an attempt this week by Peer Steinbrück, the underdog SPD candidate hoping to unseat Ms Merkel, to turn the spotlight on the government’s silence on the subject, appeared to loosen Mr Sch?uble’s tongue.