Merkel ally at EU predicts fresh bailout for Greece

An ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel who works at the EU's executive body said Saturday he expects a new bailout for Greece costing a little more that 10 billion euros (13 billion dollars), an issue that has stirred anger in Germany as an election looms, Reuters reported. Guenther Oettinger, the European commissioner for energy who is a senior member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper that he anticipated "an amount in a low double-digit number of billions" in new aid "to cover the years 2014 to 2016." The likelihood of a third bailout for Greece, which has already received 237 billion euros in aid, is seen as Merkel's greatest point of vulnerability in the campaign for the general election set for September 22.