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BERLIN -- Greece should exit the eurozone by year's end and not receive any more aid, a German regional finance minister has said in a Sunday newspaper interview, further stirring debate on the issue.
Markus Soeder, finance minister in southern Bavaria state and a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the region's sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU, said the euro itself was "right and important".
"But when a country like Greece on a continuing basis cannot pay back debts, it must leave the eurozone," he told Sunday's mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview.
"The way I foresee it, Greece should quit by the end of the year. Any new aid, any easing of the conditions would be the wrong path," he said.
Last month German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said the "horror" of a potential exit by debt-mired Greece had worn off and Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer has also not ruled it out.
Soeder's remarks prompted criticism from deputy head of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union parliamentary group Michael Meister who said such a debate was damaging and did not help solve the problems.
"That's a decision for the Greek government to make and the last thing they need is advice from Germany," he told Monday's Tagesspiegel newspaper according to a pre-released article.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who has already called for calm in the rhetoric over the eurozone debt crisis, told Monday's Focus magazine that: "Everyone should pay attention to what they say and how they say it."
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