BERLIN (MNI) – Eurozone finance ministers will decide today to
leverage the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) rescue fund
only by two to three times, Luxembourg Finance Minister Luc Frieden said
in a television interview on Tuesday.
“The EFSF needs more firing power,” Frieden told German ZDF public
television. “We will increase it today by two to three times…not as
much as we’ve previously thought.”
Initially, the EFSF was to be leveraged four to five times, but it
has run into troubles finding investors for its leverage models.
Besides boosting the EFSF, “we also need the IMF…and all the
possibilities that the ECB has with its independence and in the
framework allowed by the treaties,” Frieden added.
The minister said he did not expect joint eurobonds to be issued in
the Eurozone in the near term.
“I think that eurobonds…would not be the immediate solution for
the problem,” he explained. However, once confidence and stability are
restored, “one could conceive of joint bonds under certain conditions up
to a certain level,” he said.
The minister said he did not support the idea that the triple-A
rated countries in the Eurozone issue joint bonds, so-called elite
bonds, “because we need to solve the problems of those states which have
problems refinancing themselves, not those of the triple-A states.”
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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