Euro countries square up to change focus 05/11/2010

Euro countries square up to change

focus 05/11/2010 BRUSSELS — Backstop bailouts for troubled partners, shared economic “government” and tough new budgetary rules: 11 years after the currency’s creation, the eurozone is in metamorphosis amid financial crises. “That’s the way it always is, from one crisis to the next, Europe reinvents itself,” France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday. An unprecedented market tempest that has shaken the eurozone to its core is lifting all taboos surrounding the European Union’s flagship project of monetary union. Finance ministers from the 27 member states are trying to nail down a “stabilization” fund to assuage markets that have been running wild in Asia and elswhere, merging monies raised by the executive European Commission on the back of EU budgets with guarantees by member states. “We’re moving into another dimension,” said one diplomat who likened the emerging shape of the plans to a regional version of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund.... MORE   Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100511com8.html

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