Berlin, Germany. The Merkel administration has had a rough few years since flooding their nation with migrants and destabilizing their society. But the last thing Frau Merkel had to see coming after her, would be her own liberal base.
Germany’s liberal Free Democratic Party, a potential uniter after September’s national election, ruled out any coalition that would provide a financial bailout to another euro zone country without the participation of the International Monetary Fund.
FDP leader, Christian Lindner, made the comments on Friday after Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Thursday any new aid program should not include the IMF, leaving it under European auspices .
Accusing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives of making a U-turn on euro zone rescues, Lindner opposed Schaeuble’s idea of developing the euro zone’s European Stability Mechanism (ESM) rescue fund into a European IMF type fund.
Lindner said a European version of the IMF would not be politically independent and a minority of euro zone countries, such as Germany, may be outvoted by a majority of fiscally lenient countries, in particular Scandanavian ones.
The pro business FDP was a partner in Merkel’s 2009-13 conservative-led coalition. But it crashed out of parliament after failing to clear the 5 percent needed to win seats in the current lower house Bundestag.
Polls suggest six party groups, including the FDP, will enter parliament after the Sept. 24 election, up from four now. Neither Merkel’s conservatives nor the SPD would be able to govern alone, suggesting Merkel has a real problem trying to unite polar opposites.