Chancellor Angela Merkel hardened her resistance to euro area debt sharing to resolve the region's financial crisis, setting Germany on a collision course with its allies at a summit of European leaders this week.
Merkel dismissed "eurobonds, eurobills and European deposit insurance with joint liability and much more" as "economically wrong and counterproductive", saying that they ran against the German constitution. “It’s not a bold prediction to say that in Brussels most eyes -- all eyes -- will be on Germany yet again”, Merkel said. “I say quite openly: when I think of the summit on Thursday I’m concerned that once again the discussion will be far too much about all kinds of ideas for joint liability and far too little about improved oversight and structural measures.”
At a June 22 four-way summit meeting in Rome, Merkel faced a united front among her three interlocutors -- Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, French President François Hollande and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy -- on making the euro region’s rescue funds more flexible. She dismissed a Monti plan last week to use the funds -- the temporary European Financial Stability Facility or the permanent European Stability Mechanism -- to buy bonds, and spelled out her opposition to recapitalising banks directly.
“There must not be an imbalance between liability and control”, she said today. “For instance, we would do a European deposit insurance immediately if it doesn’t lead to common liability but to improved oversight possibilities and standards.”
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