BERLIN (MNI) – Germany still rejects the idea of allowing the
European bailout funds EFSF and ESM to directly lend to troubled banks
in the Eurozone, Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc, said Tuesday.
Any financial “aid has to be requested by the concerned
governments, as foreseen in the rules,” Kauder said after talks in
Brussels with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, EU
Council president Herman Van Rompuy and EFSF CEO Klaus Regling.
“If there is now a discussion about the recapitalisation need of
Spanish banks, then the Spanish government should swiftly decide now if
it wants to approach the EFSF,” the CDU/CSU parliamentary leader said.
German weekly Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that Merkel and
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had urged Spain to apply for
financial aid from the EFSF to prop up its banking system.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday that it
is up the Spanish government to decide whether it will apply for aid
from the EFSF and accept the conditions tied to it.
“If there is the need for aid, everybody knows that Europe is
ready, that Europe is showing solidarity and that Europe has the tools
to help,” Seibert said at a regular government press conference. “But
the decision on this – once the numbers [of the capitalisation need of
Spanish banks] are available – lies solely with the Spanish government,”
he asserted.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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