BRUSSELS (MNI) – The European Commission wants EU leaders meeting
here this week to secure a deal to aid Greece or other Eurozone
countries that get into financial difficulty, Olli Rehn, the European
Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, said on Wednesday.
He said that holding a meeting of Eurozone finance ministers before
the EU leaders’ summit would be a good idea.
Heavily-indebted Greece could need financial aid to refinance its
debts, but Eurozone policymakers are divided over whether the aid should
come from within the currency bloc or from the International Monetary
Fund.
“The Commission is still…working very hard, closely, intensively
and together to reach a decision on a mechanism which could ensure the
financial stability of the euro area,” Rehn told reporters at a press
conference.
“I call on the EU member states and especially the euro area member
states to indeed reach such a decision this week,” he said.
“On the question relating to a possible meeting of the Eurogroup
(the club of 16 Euro-sharing states’ finance ministers), that is a
question really for the President of the European Council and the Chair
of the Eurogroup… but I have to say that it would be useful to have
that kind of a meeting,” Rehn said.
Rehn was critical of the UK debt consolidation plan, which he said
was based on macroeconomic assumptions that were too-optimistic.
–Brussels: 0032 487 (0) 32 803 665, echarlton@marketnews.com
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