–Adds quotes to story transmitted at 13:15 GMT
FRANKFURT (MNI) – The rescue plan for fiscally embattled Greece
means a stabilization of the euro, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said
Monday.
The law that would allow German funds to help prevent a Greek
bankruptcy means “not only that we are helping Greece, but also that we
are thereby stabilizing the euro as a whole and therefore helping the
people of Germany, because a stable euro is an extraordinarily precious
good,” she said.
Merkel, speaking at a press conference in Berlin to announce that
her cabinet had approved the rescue plan for Greece, insisted that
lessons be learned from the crisis.
According to the plan, the countries of the Eurozone and the
International Monetary Fund will lend E110 billion to Greece over the
next three years. Germany, via its state-owned KfW bank, will lend E8.4
billion to Greece this year and a total of E22.4 billion over three
years, Merkel explained.
Merkel insisted that the basis for the aid law to Greece is “an
ultima ratio, that is an emergency situation … in that Greece
practically no longer had access to financial markets” and that such a
situation would have had an impact on the stability of the euro.
Germany would push to establish a European rating agency, she
added, saying that “more competition among rating agencies certainly
cannot hurt.”
–Frankfurt bureau; +49-69-720142; frankfurt@marketnews.com
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