Berlin says fresh Greek aid 'not on agenda', denying media report

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Finance Ministry denied on Friday a media report that Berlin would be ready to discuss a new aid package for Greece of up to 20 billion euros if the new leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accepted supervised economic reforms. "That is not on the agenda at all," said a spokesman for Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. The report in Der Spiegel magazine that Germany estimated Greece's additional aid needs at about 20 billion euros was "pure speculation", he added. Spiegel reported that Germany would be willing to grant Greece fresh aid on condition that it accepted reforms overseen by inspectors from the "troika" - the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Tsipras was elected last weekend on a promise to reverse precisely the kind of austerity measures prescribed by Berlin and supervised by the troika. He has already scrapped some of the privatization plans agreed under the existing bailout deal and his finance minister said on Friday he had no intention of cooperating with the troika. Earlier on Friday, Schaeuble said Germany was open for talks with the new Greek government about its debt woes, but he also made clear that Athens had to implement further reforms. "We need solidarity in Europe, and besides we cannot be blackmailed," Schaeuble said. Norbert Barthle, the parliamentary spokesman on budgetary affairs for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, told the business daily Handelsblatt that if Athens refused to cooperate with the troika, there would be serious consequences. "There are clear rules and we have legal stipulations about the conditions for giving European credit assistance," he told its Saturday edition. "If Greece can't accept these conditions, it must find the necessary funding on the capital markets." Spiegel also had an interview with the European Parliament's German president, Martin Schulz, who visited Tsipras this week. He ruled out a debt cut for Greece but suggested the euro zone should give Athens more time to pay back its debt. "Right now, the last repayment is due in 2057. It wouldn't make a big difference to postpone this by 10 years," said the politician from Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), the junior coalition partners to Merkel's conservatives. (Reporting by Stephen Brown and Michael Nienaber; Editing by Gareth Jones)