• Most Popular
  • Most Shared

EU-wide bank bailout fund now has key backing: Italy

ROME
Sun Oct 5, 2008 4:59pm EDT

ROME (Reuters) - A common fund to bail out Europe's banks will be proposed this week by Italy and is already assured the backing of Germany and France, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was quoted by Italian agencies as saying on Sunday.

Crisis in Credit

Berlusconi said his Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti will propose the setting up of the fund, to be worth 3 percent of countries' GDP, to his fellow finance ministers at meetings in Luxembourg on Monday and Tuesday.

A crisis meeting in Paris of the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy on Saturday issued a series of recommendations which did not include a common bank bail-out fund.

"Yesterday in Paris I proposed that we do like what the US did," Berlusconi was quoted by ANSA as telling a center-right gathering in Milan.

"Tremonti will propose to Ecofin the setting up of a common fund worth 3 percent of GDP ... yesterday (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel couldn't accept because she didn't have the powers, today she has said she agrees. Tomorrow France will do the same."
Crisis in Credit


More from Reuters

Demonstrator holds a signboard with a slogan "Bla bla bla ACT NOW" during a rally outside the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen December 12, 2009. REUTERS/Christian Charisius

"Polluters are given rights to continue their dirty habits"

A climate change scientist blasts proposals for a cap and trade system, arguing it allows dirty industries to continue polluting, instead of rewarding innovation.  Full Article | Full Coverage 

    Climate Conference
    Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is pictured at his Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on his nomination to continue as Chairman of the Board of Governors, on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 3, 2009. REUTERS/Jason Reed

    No great expectations

    Investors are getting antsy about when the Fed will tighten its purse strings, now that the economy appears to be coming back to life.   Full Article 

    ECONOMY
    Indian woman mourns death of her relative killed in tsunami in Cuddalore. When an earthquake of magnitude 9.15 struck off Indonesia's Aceh province on December, 26, 2004, it triggered a huge tsuanmi that raced across the Indian Ocean and hit Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. The worst natural disaster of the decade left 230,000 people dead or missing. Taken on December 28, 2004 by Arko Datta

    Pictures that defined a decade

    A woman's grief amid the tsunami devastation and one woman's fight against police in the Amazon are among the indelible Reuters images of the last 10 years.  Slideshow 

    Pictures