20.6.12

Germany Repeats:No EFSF/ESM Bond Purchase W/Out Conditionality

The German government on Wednesday reaffirmed that 
the European bailout funds EFSF and ESM won't be able to buy bonds of 
EMU member states on the secondary markets without these countries 
applying formally for such aid and accepting the conditions tied to it. 

     "Such secondary market purchases are foreseen as one of several 
instruments in the EFSF as well as in the future ESM," government 
spokesman Georg Streiter said at a regular press conference here. "They 
are naturally tied to conditions and there won't ever be any purchases 
without conditions." 

     Commenting on Greece, Streiter said Germany expected that the new 
government there will abide by the fiscal consolidation and reform 
program agreed with the EU, the ECB and the IMF. 

     Yet, finance ministry spokeswoman Marianne Kothe said at the same 
press conference that regarding the timetable of the consolidation and 
reform program "small adaptations can be made, as has been already the 
case before." 

     German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told German weekly Die 
Zeit in an interview to be published Thursday that "we did not ask too 
much of Greece and we won't ask too much of Greece." 

     ECB Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen, a German national, said 
Monday it was too early to tell if Greece should be allowed more time to 
meet its goals. One must first see how the new government judges the 
state of the economy and the progress on reforms, he explained. Asmussen 
also warned that giving Greece more time meant automatically that "there 
will be an additional external financial need." 

     A senior EU official said Tuesday that Eurozone finance ministers 
are expected to open talks on modifying the details of Greece's second 
bailout program because months of political paralysis in the country 
have caused reforms to stall. 
 
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