–Adds More German Government Comments To Story Sent At 12:25 GMT
BERLIN (MNI) – The German finance ministry on Wednesday rejected
media reports saying that the German government is planning for a
restructuring of Greek debt.
“The finance ministry resolutely denies that the federal government
is planning or working on ways to restructure Greek debt,” ministry
spokesman Martin Kreienbaum said in a statement.
There are currently discussions underway for a sustainable strategy
to stabilise the Eurozone, as part of the action plan decided by EU
leaders in December, the spokesman said.
However, “plans for a restructuring of Greek government bonds are
clearly not part of these joint considerations,” he stressed.
Germany has always said that a possible participation of creditors
in rescue measures will only be part of a new crisis mechanism after
mid-2013, when the current rescue facility expires, Kreienbaum reminded.
“It will stay this way,” he promised.
Later Wednesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Werner Hoyer on told the
committee on European affairs of Germany’s lower house of parliament,
the Bundestag, that “in the view of the government the discussion about
stepping up the European Financial Stability Facility and making it more
flexible is misplaced.”
Thomas Steffen, who heads the European affairs department of the
German Finance Ministry, also told the committee that “it is clear that
we see today no need to increase the European Financial Stability
Facility, neither quantitatively nor qualitatively.”
“We see currently a calming on [bond] markets,” the ministry
official said.
In other remarks, Steffen said the ministry wants to see the next
EU bank stress test be tougher and include more banks than the tests
concluded last July.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22-62-05-80, email: twidder@marketnews.com
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