Germany denied on Friday a Spanish newspaper report that French President Nicolas Sarkozy had threatened to pull his country out of the eurozone 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.