Berlin/Madrid: Germany denied on Friday a Spanish newspaper report that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had threatened to pull his country out of the euro zone during negotiations on Greece's aid package.
Spain's El Pais newspaper reported that Sarkozy had slammed his fist on the table when he made the threat, which forced German Chancellor Angela Merkel to drop her long-standing opposition to bailing out Athens.
But deputy German government spokeswoman Sabine Heimbach denied Sarkozy had delivered the threat. "That is without any basis," she told Reuters.
El Pais said Sarkozy had made the threat at a meeting of European leaders last Friday. It cited comments by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to members of his party on Wednesday, as relayed by people present at that meeting.
A spokesman for the Spanish prime minister's office confirmed the meeting between Zapatero and other socialist party members on Wednesday, but could not immediately confirm what was said there. Sarkozy's office had no comment.
Sarkozy had demanded a "commitment from everyone to support Greece ... or France would reconsider its position in the euro," according to one source cited by El Pais.
Another source present at the meeting between Zapatero and his party members and cited by the paper said: "Sarkozy ended up banging his fist on the table and threatening to leave the euro ... This forced Angela Merkel to give in and reach an agreement."
The European Union and the International Monetary Fund agreed the 110 billion euro ($140 billion) rescue plan for Greece last week. Germany, which must shoulder a good deal of the burden, had been reluctant to commit itself to a plan because of strong public opposition at home.
Zapatero told his party members that France, Italy and Spain had formed a united front against Germany at the Brussels meeting and that Sarkozy had threatened to break up a traditional French-German "hold" on the rest of Europe, according to El Pais.
