BERLIN (MNI) – Spain needs to apply for financial aid from the
European bailout fund EFSF in order to prop up its ailing banks, Volker
Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU
bloc, said in a television interview Wednesday.
“I do think that Spain needs to tap the rescue fund – not because
of its state [finances] but because of its banks,” Kauder said.
The CDU/CSU parliamentary leader reaffirmed that Germany still
rejects the idea of allowing the European bailout funds to lend directly
to troubled banks in the Eurozone.
The German weekly Der Spiegel reported over the weekend that Merkel
and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had also urged Spain to apply
for financial aid from the EFSF.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday that it
was up the Spanish government to decide whether to apply for aid from
the EFSF and accept the conditions tied to it.
“If there is the need for aid, everybody knows that Europe is
ready, that Europe is showing solidarity and that Europe has the tools
to help,” Seibert said. “But the decision on this – once the numbers [of
the capitalization need of Spanish banks] are available – lies solely
with the Spanish government.”
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: M$X$$$,MGX$$$,M$$CR$,M$S$$$,M$G$$$,MT$$$$]