BERLIN (MNI) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU-FDP
government will not depend on the opposition to get its bill on the
reform of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) through
parliament this week, a senior lawmaker said Monday.
“I’m confident that we will have a majority of our own,” Volker
Wissing, a deputy parliamentary leader of the FDP, told Germany’s ARD
public television Monday.
The lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, will vote on the bill
on Thursday and the upper house, the Bundesrat, on Friday. The
opposition has already announced that it will vote for the bill.
Chancellor Merkel told ARD on Sunday she expects that she will have
a majority of her own.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said last week he expected the
government’s bill on the reform of the European Financial Stability
Facility (EFSF) to win some 80% of votes in parliament due to the
opposition support. So it wouldn’t matter if some parliamentarians from
the government coalition voted against it, he reasoned.
Some media had speculated that the coalition could break up if it
needed to depend on opposition votes in order to pass the EFSF bill.
Schaeuble, however, suggested last week that he sees no risk of a
coalition break up. CDU/CSU and FDP will govern together until the end
of the legislature in 2013, he predicted.
The contemplated changes to the EFSF, which were decided by
Eurozone leaders at their July 21 summit, include increased authority to
allow the fund to buy sovereign bonds of troubled EMU governments,
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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