–Merkel Repeats: Creditors Must Share Cost Of Future Bailouts
–Bruederle: Need To Exit Econ Stimulus Measures Now

BERLIN (MNI) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Tuesday that
the euro is in an “extraordinarily serious” situation due to the Irish
debt crisis.

Speaking at a conference of the German Employers’ Association here,
Merkel called the expected Irish deficit this year of just under 30% of
GDP “a dramatic number.”

The Irish problems are different from those Greece is experiencing,
she observed, “but they are nonetheless also very worrisome.”

“We are in an extraordinarily serious situation regarding the
situation of the euro,” Merkel stressed. Earlier today, German Finance
Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned in a speech in parliament that “our
common currency is at risk.”

Germany has profited in many ways from the euro, the chancellor
said. “It is our duty…to make a clear commitment to the euro,” she
vowed.

Merkel reaffirmed today her determination to make creditors
participate in future bailouts of Eurozone member states when the
current EU rescue funds expire in June 2013.

“We will take care that the current rescue funds for the euro — to
which we are adhering and do not want to change — will be replaced by a
permanent crisis mechanism for which also private creditors…will have
to assume responsibility,” she explained.

“I will not give up [this demand] because the people in our country
will not understand it if banks earn a lot of money…and afterwards the
tax payer will have to stand in” for the losses, she reasoned.

“There exists no business in the world where one can, so to speak,
hand off their risks 100% to the taxpayer and the government. And I
don’t understand why such a land of milk and honey should be the case,
of all things, in the handling of government bonds of Eurozone states,”
Merkel exclaimed.

German Economics Minister Rainer Bruederle, speaking at the same
conference, stressed that it is time now to exit from the stimulus
measures undertaken to combat the economic crisis.

“We will have reached the pre-crisis [GDP] level next year again”,
he said. “Now we must also have the strength to exit the extraordinary
measures which were the right thing in an emergency situation.”

–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com

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