BERLIN (MNI) – EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn announced
Thursday that the EU Commission intends to kick off an analytical debate
about eurobonds.
“I’m aware that there are currently rather high expectations on –
and likewise opposition to – how eurobonds could help solve the debt
crisis of euro-area member states,” Rehn said in a speech at a
conference in Berlin.
“For me, it is clear that any type of eurobonds – or better called
stability bonds – would have to be accompanied by a substantially
reinforced fiscal surveillance and policy coordination as an essential
counterpart, so as to avoid moral hazard and ensure sustainable public
finances,” the Commissioner explained.
This would necessarily have implications for fiscal sovereignty,
which in turn calls for a substantive debate in Eurozone member states
to see if they would be ready to accept it, he said.
“We will quite soon — in a couple of weeks — present a Green
Paper, a consultation paper, outlining alternatives for stability bonds
in order to facilitate an analytical, substantial discussion on the
subject, and I hope we can have a likewise very substantial and
analytical debate on this important issue before we draw any kind of
further conclusions,” Rehn elaborated.
“At least the Commission will not draw conclusions now, in other
words, we will not make any legislative proposals in that context and we
want to facilitate a serious and analytical debate with the Green Paper
on alternatives for stability bonds,” he stressed.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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