BERLIN (MNI) – A senior lawmaker from German Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s CDU/CSU-FDP coalition said Wednesday that it would be better to
let the European bailout funds EFSF and ESM operate alongside each other
for a while than to increase the volume of the ESM permanently above
E500 billion.
“This would make more sense than an increase of the ESM,” said
Norbert Barthle, the CDU/CSU’s parliamentary budget speaker.
Barthle said, though, that he still hoped that there would not be
any need for an increase of the European firewall. Should spreads on
government bonds in the Eurozone remain at their current levels in the
second quarter “then I think we will have passed the height of the
crisis,” he said.
The German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported earlier today that
the German government now thought it was conceivable that the EFSF and
the ESM could operate next to each other for a year. Under this
scenario, Germany’s share in the firewall would temporarily rise to E280
billion from E211 billion.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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