Greece: Finland Approves New Bailout Talks, Wolfgang Schaeuble Continues To Favor Grexit

After Greece seemingly capitulated to Germany's austerity demands on Sunday, calls appear to be growing for the embattled country to be afforded more relief. On Thursday, Finland's parliament voted to hold new negotiations for bailing out Athens, as well as talks for possible emergency funding, Finland's Finance Minister Alexander Stubb said.

The news came as European shares hit a six-week high amid news of Greece agreeing to the bailout deal, with Spain selling $7 billion in bonds in its biggest auction in over a year. Austria's finance minister Hans Joerg Schelling also said that he has heard from sources in the European Central Bank that Greece's bridge financing, or emergency liquidity assistance, would likely be extended by Friday.

"From the beginning it was important for us to get tough conditionality. We feel that this has materialized in the deal (agreed by the EU and Greece)," Stubb told reporters, according to Reuters.

On Wednesday, a leaked report from the International Monetary Fund warned that Greece's debt was "highly unsustainable" and called for major debt relief that was "well beyond what had been under consideration to date," and sharply warned EU nations that the IMF, a major creditor to Greece, would not take part in future bailouts without some form of debt relief being offered.

Klaus Regling, head of the European Stability Mechanism, also warned that Greece's banking system could collapse if a third bailout was not finalized.

As pressure increases on Berlin to extend further relief to Athens, the German government appeared to be giving ground. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said that he would submit a request to his country's parliament to open talks on Greece's third bailout fund with "full conviction," but added that he believes that a temporary Grexit would still be a better option.

"Many economists ... are listening to what the IMF says, which doubts that Greece's problems can be solved without a real debt haircut," he said, according to the Irish Times. "But a real haircut is incompatible with membership in a currency union."

Germany has proposed a plan that would see Greece make a temporary departure from the eurozone for five years while it restructures its debt and receives humanitarian aid. Germany's Bundestag is set to vote on the current rescue plan Friday.