MEXICO CITY (MNI) – Eurozone leaders will likely agree to boost the
Eurozone rescue fund by combining EFSF funds with those of its permanent
successor ESM to a total of to E750 billion, the European Union’s
Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Oli Rehn said Sunday.
European leaders have committed to a “reasessment of the combined
EFSF/ESM lending capacity which I expect will lead to a positive
conclusion and increased leading capacity, ” Rehn said during a press
briefing following a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central
bankers.
Rehn said additional European action should pave the way for broad
agreement on increasing the International Monetary Fund’s resources
“preferably at the IMF spring meetings in April.”
Questioned whether boosting firewalls further is still necessary
given recent signs of stabilization in the Eurozone, Rehn said “it is
better to take a preventive approach, prevention is always better than
correction.”
“Indeed as we have a large enough firewall, we are much more
convincingly able to contain’ the turbulence that may still return,”
Rehn added.
The official G20 communique said European action on its own
firewalls ” will provide an essential input in our ongoing consideration
to mobilize resources to the IMF.”
Rehn noted that the G20 finance ministers and central bank
governors had expressed very strong support for the Eurozone’s strong
crisis response and the second bailout program from Greece “which can
bring Greece on a sustainable path.”
–Frankfurt newsroom +49 69 72 01 42; e-mail: jtreeck@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: MT$$$$,M$$EC$,M$X$$$,M$$CR$,MI$$$$]