German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and Yanis Varoufakis today

Greece’s new finance minister has urged Germany to help end the “gross indignity” of the Greek debt crisis. Yanis Varoufakis said “too much time, hopes, lives” had been wasted by Greece’s forced austerity programme….

Some club, in fairness.

End ‘gross indignity’, Greek FM Varoufakis tells Germany (BBC)

Meanwhile…

FTSE Eurofirst falls 0.4 after impass in Greek debt deal

Shares in Greece’s biggest banks fall 8pc

Denmark slashes rates to -0.75pc on currency fears

Varoufakis calls more for time and emergency bridging loans

Markets rocked by surprise ECB move to cut Greek bank funding (Telegraph)

Earlier: Making A Drachma Out of A Crisis

(AFP)

No.

GERMANY HAS said it will oppose any Irish debt-relief proposal it believes sends a negative signal to financial markets.

Finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has said Ireland’s “massive” reform progress should not be compromised by anything that would halt the “winning back of trust”.

His doubts pose a challenge to the Government, which expects a political agreement by October on relieving Ireland’s €64 billion bank debt burden.

“We cannot do anything that generates new uncertainty on the financial markets and lose trust, which Ireland is just at the point of winning back,” said Mr Schäuble in an interview with The Irish Times.

Thanks a pantload there, Wolfgang.