Former German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble on Wednesday told Greek reporters on Skai TV that he would have found it far from easy to impose on his country austerity measures like the ones he helped design for Greece.
"I would not have wanted to be forced to impose such reforms in Germany, politically it is not at all easy," Schäuble, who was Germany's feared paymaster from 2009 and one of the architects of the Greek bailouts, told Greece's Skai TV.
With the worst of Greece's eight-year economic crisis now over, Schäuble said that seeing the southern European nation shrug off bailout crutches would be his "happiest moment".
"I believe the worst is over, the data shows things are recovering," he said.
"According to the latest, it is thought that Greece will manage without new measures, and that it will regain access to the markets."
Reports claim, following three successive bailouts since 2010 which Germany played a key role in crafting, Greece's gross national output fell by a quarter owing to broad pay cuts and tax hikes imposed to rein in runaway state spending.
