Greek PM to visit Merkel's Bavarian ally next month
BERLIN | Mon Nov 19, 2012 4:11pm EST
(Reuters) - Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will travel to Bavaria next month to meet the leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative sister party whose officials have repeatedly called for Greece to be thrown out of the euro zone.
Merkel has repeatedly said she wants Greece to remain in the euro zone, but her Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) colleagues in southern Germany have taken a tougher line.
Samaras's visit will take place on December 9, the Bavarian State Chancellery said.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble will join other euro zone finance ministers and IMF officials in Brussels on Tuesday to try to narrow their differences on how to make Greece's heavy debt load more sustainable.
The parliamentary floor leader of Merkel's Christian Democrats, Volker Kauder, said on Monday the party, along with the CSU, would hold a special session on Greece on Wednesday where Schaeuble would brief lawmakers on the Brussels discussions.
Party sources told Reuters the Free Democrats, the Social Democrats and the Greens would also all hold sessions on Greece on Wednesday.
The German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, will have to vote on further aid payments to Greece under its international bailout program.
(Reporting by Jens Hack, Andreas Rinke, Holger Hansen and Thorsten Severin; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Alison Williams)
