BERLIN (MNI) – The budget committee of Germany’s lower house of
parliament, the Bundestag, is unlikely to decide on Thursday anymore
about the guidelines for the European Financial Stability Facility
(EFSF), a senior lawmaker from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU-FDP
coalition said today.

“I don’t think that we will make a decision on this today,” Norbert
Barthle, the CDU/CSU’s parliamentary budget speaker, said on the
sidelines of a meeting of the Budget Committee here.

Barthle noted that there is still no agreement on a European level
about possible leveraging of the EFSF.

Barthle said, however, that he still expects an agreement could be
reached before Sunday’s EU summit.

Under German law, the budget committee of the Bundestag needs to
approve any changes to the EFSF’s guidelines.

–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com

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