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Translated from the German
It is currently debated whether the troika, consisting of IMF, ECB and Commission, should not be replaced by a European Monetary Fund.
In a way, we have such a fund already, only that in Europe it is distributed over several institutions: the ESM, the ECB, the Eurogroup and not last the European Commission. I think that the Commission needs to remain a strong institution in the future.
So in fact we do not need a European Monetary Fund, as the EU Parliament wants to create?
The way that we have divided the tasks is functioning well, therefore I am not fighting for a European Monetary Fund.
Does that mean that the ESM, which could be the seed of a European Monetary Fund, is ultimately much weaker than the IMF?
No. Even now, we give out more loans than the IMF. In the past three years, we have given out €225 billion, without creating any further burden for the German taxpayer, by the way. In the same timeframe, the IMF has only allocated around €70 billion globally. The ESM also has some powers which the IMF does not have. We can intervene, for example, on the bond market and we are able to recapitalise banks by loans to the government.
Are you preparing to distribute the next large sum of money to the banks at the moment?
The ESM is supposed to step into the breach if capital gaps are discovered during the stress test for the 130 largest banks which the ECB will be conducting. The ESM will - if at all - step in only at the very end of a long bail-in cascade. Before it comes to the ESM, private shareholders will have to have lost capital and there will have to have been an extensive bail-in. Also the national means of the respective country must first be exhausted. Important to note: Before the ESM can in fact recapitalise any bank directly, the eurozone finance ministers have to agree unanimously.
How much capital do you expect will be required?
I am optimistic that we will not need much capital, especially not in the five countries that have had programmes.
That means you are noting expect any nasty surprises in the five crisis countries?
No, the banks of the programme countries are now in pretty good shape. We know the banks there, they have been analysed more than once in recent years, even by outside experts. I am expecting no big surprises in Spain, Portugal and Cyprus; and the same applies to Greece and Ireland.
How do you see the future of the five crisis countries that have benefited from the programmes?
I believe that in the medium and long term, those countries have the best prospects of all EU countries because they will have gone through the hard adjustment processes that make them fit for the future. These five countries are the reform champions of the world, they now have rising exports and growth is returning. Is important, however, that the reforms are kept up there.
Full interview (in German)