BERLIN, March 22 (Reuters) – Europe’s paymaster Germany
stepped up pressure on stricken Cyprus on Friday, rejecting its
proposal to nationalise pension funds to plug its finance gap
and demanding it take an axe to its banks if it wants a bailout.

Chancellor Angela Merkel stuck to the hard line Berlin has
been pushing for weeks, telling lawmakers that while she wanted
to keep Cyprus in the euro zone, the country must first
recognise it had no future as an offshore financial centre for
wealthy Russians and Britons.

BERLIN (Reuters) – For three years, the euro zone crisis has played out according to a familiar pattern: German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a rock-hard line towards struggling southern states only to buckle at the last minute and offer aid when disaster threatened.

No longer. With Cyprus, a tiny Mediterranean island that for Berlin exemplifies much of what is rotten with Europe’s currency bloc, this pattern may be finally breaking down.

BERLIN, March 20 (Reuters) – For three years, the euro zone
crisis has played out according to a familiar pattern: German
Chancellor Angela Merkel took a rock-hard line towards
struggling southern states only to buckle at the last minute and
offer aid when disaster threatened.

No longer. With Cyprus, a tiny Mediterranean island that for
Berlin exemplifies much of what is rotten with Europe’s currency
bloc, this pattern may be finally breaking down.