Germany wants a European Fund
Queen of fiscal orthodoxy, Germany wants the EU to acquire a European Monetary Fund, modeled on the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Such a body in the euro area would cope with crisis situations, such as it is currently because of Greece.
"For the stability of the euro area, we need an institution that has the experience of the IMF and similar powers to intervene," said Sunday Wolfgang Schauble, Minister of Economy in the newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The European Commission said in the wake it supported such a proposal. "We are working closely on this issue with Germany, France and other member states of the EU," said European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Olli Rehn in the Financial Times Deutschland published Monday.
A "FME" (European Monetary Fund) would most Europeans treat their own problems. The Germans, like other member countries of the euro area, in fact, reject the idea of an IMF intervention in favor of Greece. "The euro area tends to be able to solve its problems alone. Accept financial aid from the IMF would, in my opinion an admission that the countries of the euro can not solve all their problems alone, "said Wolfgang Schauble argued in the German Sunday newspaper.
Above all, Berlin, traditionally hostile to an integrated European fiscal policy, said a WEF would finally impose its partners more lax fiscal discipline any Germanic."According to the German conception of the thing, the plan [to reform European economic policy, Ed] could include significant penalties for countries in the eurozone would fail to discipline their public finances," writes the Financial Times, which is based on statements by senior European officials.
"Effective sanctions'
Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the CSU, the Bavarian wing of the German Conservative Party, says the same thing. "We must now consider how we are going to better control the future state of the eurozone as Greece and to make sanctions effective," he said in the Bild am Sonntag, dated Sunday.
Other proposals for European economic government move. Belgium proposes the creation of a European agency debt.This institution could issue and manage debt of member countries, giving rise ultimately "a single European market for government debt," wrote Prime Minister Yves Leterme in an article published in Le Monde and the Financial Times Deutschland. Luxembourg offers his hand to the establishment of a European rating agency.