Europe Finance Chiefs Delay Decision on Increasing Bailout Fund |
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February 16, 2011
European finance ministers want their permanent rescue fund to be able to lend more money to struggling countries, but held off Tuesday from making any formal decisions.
European finance ministers want their permanent rescue fund to be able to lend more money to struggling countries, but held off Tuesday from making any formal decisions.
Ministers ended two days of meetings on Tuesday with conflicting signals, as concrete decisions on short-term steps to deal with future debt crises were postponed despite growing market pressure on Portugal.
Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, who leads the euro zone finance group, said late Monday that ministers had reached a consensus on expanding the money available for lending to 500 billion euros ($677 billion) - double the fund's current capacity - beginning in 2013. He added that ministers were discussing several ideas for making the fund more flexible.
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