Justin's Political Corner
Angela Merkel is poised to allow the eurozone’s €750bn bailout fund to buy up the bonds of crisis-hit governments in a desperate effort to drive down borrowing costs for Spain and Italy and prevent the single currency from imploding.
Germany has long opposed allowing the eurozone’s rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to lend directly to troubled eurozone countries, fearing that Berlin would end up paying the bill, and the beneficiaries would escape the strict conditions imposed on Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
But Merkel has come under intense pressure as financial markets have pushed up borrowing costs for Spain to levels that many analysts see as unsustainable.
Analysts are likely to see the decision as the first step towards sharing the burden of troubled countries’ debts across the single currency’s 17 members, though it falls short of the “eurobonds” proposed by the European commission president José Manuel Barroso.
The proposal was discussed on the margins of the two-day G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, which has been dominated by the depressing impact of the eurozone crisis on the world economy.
G20 officials believe an announcement could be made by the leaders of the eurozone in the next few days, but stressed they remained unclear as to timing and precise content.
It would be the first time the EU bailout funds have been used directly to purchase Spanish debt. It is understood the money would come from both the €500m European Stability Mechanism and its predecessor, the €250m European Financial Stability Facility.
Britain does not contribute to either fund.
Last week EU leaders had agreed a line of credit to Spanish banks through the Spanish government, a move that failed to reduce Spanish bond yields.
Madrid was granted a €100bn bailout from its European partners earlier this month to shore up its financial sector. But news that the full extent of the shortfall of the banks will not be known until the autumn underlined the sense of chaos.
There was speculation that the full total required could end up being far more than €100bn. Madrid was forced to pay a record 5.7% at a debt auction on Tuesday morning to borrow €2.4bn for just 12 months, prompting analysts to say Spain is edging perilously close to needing a full-blown rescue.
