EU agrees on permanent rescue plan for eurozone
EU leaders have agreed to set up a permanent mechanism to bail out any member state whose debt problems threaten the 16-nation eurozone.
The eurozone stability mechanism will require a change to the EU’s Lisbon Treaty – but the wording has now been agreed, diplomats say.
EU President Herman Van Rompuy said leaders were ready to do whatever was required to protect the currency.
This year Greece and the Irish Republic have received emergency EU bail-outs.
The 27 leaders, meeting in Brussels on Thursday, agreed that in 2013 the permanent mechanism would succeed the eurozone’s 750bn-euro (£637bn; $1tn) temporary bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF).
“We stand ready to do whatever is required to ensure the financial stability of the eurozone as a whole,” Mr Van Rompuy told a news conference.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said it was “a big day for Europe” and leaders must now put their words into action.
“Our task now is to hold a course – walk, not talk – and prove those wrong who predicted the demise of our common currency.”
Tough conditions
The agreement says “member states whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism, to be activated if indispensable to safeguard the stability of the euro as a whole”.
But any eurozone country requiring such an injection of emergency aid must act to tackle its debt or deficit, the statement adds.
“The granting of any required financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality,” the text says.
Diplomats said the agreed wording – two sentences – would be inserted into the Lisbon Treaty.
The treaty change can be approved through a simplified procedure, EU officials say.
That means the EU should avoid any repeat of the wrangling and referendums that plagued the treaty negotiations for years.
As the UK uses the pound it will not have to contribute to the fund, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said.
Eurozone tensions
The new mechanism will require private sector bondholders to share the cost of any debt restructuring on a case-by-case basis, Reuters news agency reports.
Mrs Merkel had pushed for a change to the Lisbon Treaty to make eurozone bail-outs legal – but only as a last resort.
The summit comes amid continuing concern about stability in the eurozone, as national debts and deficits have soared above the EU’s targets.
Portugal and Spain have been under financial market scrutiny since the Irish Republic was forced to take an aid package of 85bn euros (£72bn; $113bn) last month.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has been buying billions of euros of sovereign debt to ease the pressure on the countries seen as most vulnerable in the eurozone. It is to double the reserves it holds – to 10.8bn euros, from 5.8bn euros at present.
A permanent mechanism is the minimum the financial markets had come to expect, says the BBC’s economics correspondent, Andrew Walker.
He says that as expected, there was no commitment on two other ideas discussed ahead of the system which might have helped the markets – enlarging the current rescue facility, and joint borrowing in the financial markets by countries using the euro.
Analysts have expressed concern that the EU talks would not address a key issue – whether or not investors who have bought bonds in struggling euro nations would have to lose money – or in the language of the financial world, “take a haircut” – on their investment between now and 2013.
This week the yield rose on Spanish bonds – essentially the interest rate which the government must pay in order to borrow money.
The rising cost of borrowing reflects investors’ concern about the outlook for the Spanish economy and its banking sector in particular.
Madrid insists it will not need to apply for a bail-out from the EFSF – the temporary rescue scheme set up in May, which is funded by the EU and International Monetary Fund.
But on Wednesday the ratings agency Moody’s warned it may downgrade Spain’s debt.
Source: BBC