This looks like a selectively timed leak:
A special working group, led by deputy finance minister Thomas Steffen, is working on scenarios in the case that Greece is forced to withdraw from the 17-nation bloc, the Financial Times Deutschland reported on Friday.
“Colleagues are making calculations about the financial consequences [of an exit] and are considering how a domino effect on other euro member states might be prevented,” it quoted a finance industry source as saying.
The ten-member working group, which is made up of officials from various finance ministry departments, wanted to be fully prepared for a possible “negative scenario,” the source added.
And then there is this (from The Independent):
The Obama administration will pressure European governments not to let Greece fall out of the eurozone before November’s Presidential elections, British Government sources have suggested. Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are due to arrive in Athens next month to assess Greece’s reform efforts.They are expected to report in time for an 8 October meeting of eurozone finance ministers which will decide on whether to disburse Greece’s next €31bn aid tranche, promised under the terms of the bailout for the country. American officials are understood to be worried that if they decide Greece has not done enough to meet its deficit targets and withhold the money, it would automatically trigger Greece’s exit from the eurozone weeks before the Presidential election on 6 November. They are urging eurozone Governments to hold off from taking any drastic action before then – fearing that the resulting market destabilisation could damage President Obama’s re-election prospects.
Because it is always about Obama.
And then there’s this:
European leaders are thought to be sympathetic to the lobbying fearing that, under pressure from his party in Congress, Mitt Romney would be a more isolationist president than Mr Obama.
Okey dokey.