PARIS (MNI) – It would be against EU law for a country to leave or
be expelled from the Eurozone, European Central Bank President
Jean-Claude Trichet said in a very brief television interview broadcast
late Wednesday.
“This is not legally possible,” Trichet told France 3 television in
a 10-second snippet shot on Tuesday afternoon at the European Parliament
in Brussels after he testified to a parliamentary committee there. “I
have always qualified it as an absurd hypothesis. It is not consistent
with [Europe's] common destiny.”
Trichet was responding to remarks over the past several days by
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang
Schaeuble, who both said — in connection with the Greek debt crisis —
that they could envision a country leaving the Eurozone “as a last
resort” if it were unable to meet the EU’s fiscal requirements.
EU heads of state and government will meet in Brussels Thursday and
Friday amid a swirl of conflicting reports and rumors over whether they
will be able to agree on a contingency aid package for Greece.
According to latest reports, such a plan would include assistance
both from the International Monetary Fund and from Eurozone countries
that wished to contribute – the latter most likely in the form of
bilateral loans.
–Paris newsroom, +331-42-71-55-40; bwolfson@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: M$$EC$,M$$CR$,MT$$$$,M$X$$$,MGX$$$]
