Italy calls for euro bonds as UK backs fiscal union

[Ghost Dog]

Source: Reuters

...Tremonti returned to proposals for jointly-issued bonds that would effectively make individual governments' debt a common burden, saying they were the "master solution" to the euro zone debt crisis...

...However the idea was immediately rejected by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said such bonds would undermine the basis for the single currency by weakening fiscal discipline among member states.

"I rule out euro bonds for as long as member states conduct their own financial policies, and we need differing interest rates so that there are possibilities of incentives and sanctions to force fiscal solidity," he told Der Spiegel weekly...

...Underlining the concerns about the spreading euro zone debt crisis which have grown outside the currency bloc, Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne said some kind of fiscal union may now be needed for the 17-member euro area. Asked if the only answer for the euro zone was some form of fiscal union, he told BBC radio: "The short answer is yes."...


Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/08/13/uk-eurozone-idUKTRE77C14220110813

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...For decades the Foreign Office and Treasury have resisted –and said the UK would veto – any moves towards a "two-speed" or "multi-speed" Europe, believing it would lead to pressure on those outside the central core to cede more sovereignty over time. But with the eurozone in crisis, Osborne and Cameron have abandoned that resistance and now believe the euro's only hope of survival is if the EU backs more co-ordination of tax and spending policies. Osborne told Radio 4's Today show: "I think we have to accept that is going to happen. It is in our interest that it happens because an unstable euro is very bad news for us."

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will meet in Paris on Tuesday to discuss how to beef up "economic governance" across the 17-member single currency zone, amid rising fears about the euro's future.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the outgoing boss of the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank, has called for a euro-wide finance ministry as the only way to prevent a recurrence of the debt crisis which has seen Greece, Portugal and Ireland receive emergency aid...

/... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/14/eu-referendum-cameron-uturn-tax

[PoliticAverse]

1. The ultimate form of bailout ? n/t

[Owlet]

2. Good luck with that

"Jean-Claude Trichet, the outgoing boss of the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank, has called for a euro-wide finance ministry as the only way to prevent a recurrence of the debt crisis which has seen Greece, Portugal and Ireland receive emergency aid..."

The Germans will never go along. Any attempt by Merkel to agree with anything like this will cost her her job.

[Ghost Dog]

4. The German Social Democratic, and the German Green parties

approve action along these lines, though. As long as the job is done properly (ie. is relatively progressive).

To whom precisely do you expect Ms. Merkel to lose her job at the next elections if not to these?

It is said that polls say that Social Democrats and Greens would win an election if held today.

[xchrom]

3. recommend