Germany's main opposition party threatened on Wednesday to block government plans to fast-track parliamentary approval of aid for debt-ravaged Greece, a move which could end up delaying a critical bailout for weeks.
Ahead of a key regional vote, the budget spokesman for the Social Democrats (SPD), Carsten Schneider, told Reuters his party did not want to rush through any bill that might result in Germany issuing guarantees for billions of euros worth of aid.
"We won't go along with this," he said. "First the government can't decide what they want to do and now they want to put us under pressure with the legislative process."
While the SPD supports aid for Greece, it appears keen not to let conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel push back a parliamentary discussion on the issue until after a key regional election on May 9th in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Polls show Germans are strongly opposed to a bailout for Greece, and Merkel has been reluctant to pledge any aid in the run-up to the vote in Germany's most populous state, fearful it could hurt her party's support there.
By threatening to resist a fast-track procedure after the vote, the SPD may be hoping to force Merkel to accept an aid debate sooner than she would like.
Merkel had hoped to wait until after the vote and then, if Greece made a formal request for support, push an aid law through parliament rapidly.
AID IN STEPS
If Germany pledged aid immediately after the election, that would leave 10 days to secure parliament's approval before a key trigger event for markets tracking Greece's efforts to manage its debt – the May 19 refinancing of an 8.5 billion euro bond.
A spokesman for Merkel's conservatives in parliament estimated that if Greece were to request aid in the coming weeks, the cabinet could approve a bill at the earliest on May 12 and push a law through both houses of parliament by May 25.
Investors are increasingly pricing in expectations that Greece will tap the aid package, which would include funds from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and euro zone states, sooner rather than later.
The conservative spokesman said one possibility, as Greece does not need all the aid at once, would be for the IMF to provide initial funds needed for the bond refinancing, with France and later Germany offering further support in steps.
Germany is expected to provide 8.0 billion euros of a 30 billion euro emergency aid package from euro zone countries. France is pledging a maximum of 6.3 billion euros.
Despite Merkel's majority in the Bundestag lower house, any attempt to accelerate the legislative process generally needed the approval of opposition parties, said Uwe Andersen, a political scientist at the University of Bochum.
Merkel's conservatives rule NRW with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) — the same pairing which govern together at a national level — and the two must hold the state to retain control of the Bundesrat upper house of parliament.
Opposition to an accelerated approval process for the aid has come not just from the centre-left SPD. The conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, has also signalled it could do likewise.
