Euro crisis: talks last chance
Posted by admin on October 20th, 2011Phone calls at the highest level, video conferencing, round trips of crisis, the climb to the top of the euro appears more frantic Sunday every hour that passes. Nicolas Sarkozy made last night on an emergency trip from Frankfurt to tighten rope with Angela Merkel. But in the final meters, it is the Italy of Silvio Berlusconi could give a cold sweat in the common currency.
Ten days after his trip to Berlin, Nicolas Sarkozy visited on Wednesday in the financial capital of Germany for a further meeting with Angela Merkel. Officially, he came to pay tribute to Jean-Claude Trichet, who drew his bow at the head of the ECB. But in practice, to lock an agreement soon with the Chancellor. After a two-hour meeting nothing has filtered. The two leaders were released separately without comment. They looked tense.They rushed into their cars, to use the plane to Paris and Berlin.
The key issue – the appropriate role or not the European Central Bank in the financing of sovereign debt in support of the EFSF, the bailout funds in the euro area – remains still pending. France is clearly, even amending the Treaties. Germany has always been against the name of financial orthodoxy and independence considered sacrosanct by the ECB.
The question plagues the Paris-Berlin for months. At one hundred hours of a summit that everyone wants to believe decisive, it is especially doubt the strength of the Franco-German base on which the 17 partners of the euro and the 27 EU countries have establish a bulwark Sunday against the crisis and contagion."Monday morning he will have the markets, the United States, China and the IMF are convinced that Europe has a plan, a European official placed loose in the heart of the discussion. If there is no agreement, each European country will be reduced to playing individual survival. "
A "Mr Euro"
As a result, dramatically raised the bar for Sunday. Until recent days, Europeans thought solve problems in sequence: first Greece, then the recapitalization of banks with the strengthening of EFSF and economic governance coupled with greater budgetary discipline and finally the start of construction new treaties to push European integration. In an emergency, they say in Brussels, the Heads of State and Government will instead have to treat the whole as a whole.
Essential parts are already in place.Athens will release in the coming days with an 8 billion euro. She will spend the deadlines in November and avoid bankruptcy catastrophic for the euro. Unless dramatic, France and Germany also agreed on the recapitalization of banks. Governance side, it seems certain that the European Council President Herman Van Rompuy become "Mr. Euro ". The terms of the collective fiscal discipline and above the level of checks carried out by teams in each capital Brussels are still under debate. The case directly related to the revision of treaties, also raises serious questions of national sovereignty.
But against the backdrop of persistent differences between France and Germany regarding the bailout fund and the role of the ECB, it remains to organize the famous "against fire" in the euro area, ie to prevent the spread of the fire."It's reassuring to calm the Greek home. But that does not answer the real question posed by the market: what happens if other countries are in turn earned by the flames? ", Said the European official.
After degradation of Spain by Moody's and uncertainty on France by Standard & Poor's is Italy, the third power of the euro might come to haunt the summit. "Nobody talks about it openly, but everyone has the scenario of an Italian debacle in mind," said one senior source. After public criticism that its inertia creates the Italian employers, Silvio Berlusconi could be claimed Sunday accountable by their peers, they say in Brussels.
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