Nobody is telling the truth, exept Angela Merkel, because she can decide. Anything that is decided in the Eurogroup, has to be confirmed in the Bundestag (the German parliament).
Chances are you're right. She's telling the truth, since she has the rightful position to decide for a country's future... It's easy to say the truth when you're burden free. Living in a country that became "the miracle" of economic growth because in 1954* the other countries signed off its external debt; sure, seems the right way to do it.
But... what if everybody asked for their money back? Why Germany, back then was eligible for a "gift" and Greece now is not? Maybe Greece is just too small for Germany's big plans; but back in 1940 they settled all those plans back. History is a bitch. Tends to repeat itself; and fool yourselves not, we're at war today. Only the weapons are bonds, derivatives and Euro bills.**
Sources:
*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Agreement_on_German_External_Debts**
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/34431Edit:
To backup my previous musings here's an interesting article from Huffington Post:
It is not surprising that the very idea of a referendum would provoke the ire of the eurozone authorities. Unlike the European Union, which has a different history, the eurozone project has become a fundamentally anti-democratic project. It has to be; the people currently running it want to reverse, as much as possible, decades of social progress on issues that are vital to Europeans.
But you don't have to take my word for it: there is a paper trail of thousands of pages that spell out their political agenda. The IMF conducts regular consultations with member governments under Article IV of its charter, and these result in papers which contain policy recommendations. There were 67 such consultations for EU countries during the four years of 2008 to 2011, and the pattern was striking: budget tightening was recommended in all 27 countries, with spending cuts generally favored over tax increases.
Cutting health care and pension spending, reducing eligibility for disability and unemployment compensation, raising retirement ages and increasing labor supply were also overwhelmingly common recommendations.
The European authorities took advantage of the crisis and post-crisis years to impose parts of this agenda on the weaker eurozone economies: Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and most brutally of all, Greece. More than 20 governments fell as a result, until finally, in Greece on January 25, a government was elected that said no. The goal of the European authorities, therefore, is to topple this government. This has been apparent since the ECB cut off its main line of credit to Greece on February 4.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot/congress-imf-greece_b_7716422.html
