Germany's Schäuble Maintains Hard Line with Greece's Varoufakis Following Initial Debt Talks (NBG) (FXE)

The National Bank of Greece (NYSE: NBG) is lower in early trading Thursday following news that Germany is pushing for Greece to stick with its current debt obligations.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis met with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in Berlin today. Varoufakis is calling for a bridge program which would allow the European Central Bank to continue lending to Greece's banks through the end of May.

Following long and extensive talks, Schäuble said the two sides agreed to disagree.

However, Varoufakis later commented, We did not reach agreement because it was never on the cards that we would. We agreed to enter into deliberations as partners with the orientation of a joint solution to European problems that’s going to put the interests of Europe at the helm.

Notably, there are election in Hamburg later this month, which may be causing Schäuble to take a tougher stance than normal.

Shares of NBG are down 3.5 percent.

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