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www.ft.com/cms/s/0/02729eb6-f7f8-11df-8d91-00144feab49a.html#ixzz16h9B7wpE]Merkel seeks to pull bondholders into rescues[/url]
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Berlin
Published: November 24 2010 18:39 | Last updated: November 24 2010 18:39
Chancellor Angela Merkel invoked “the primacy of politics” over financial markets as her government finalised a plan for bondholders to join the rescue of eurozone countries crippled by sovereign debt – although the rule would probably only apply beyond 2016.
The finance ministry in recent days circulated a policy-outline among key ministries demanding eurozone governments include “collective action clauses” when issuing new bonds which would allow swift majority decisions by investors in a debt crisis.
As anxious bond-market investors deepened the eurozone’s debt crisis by selling off Irish, Portuguese and Spanish sovereign bonds, Ms Merkel repeated in parliament her call for a future involvement of bondholders when governments hit payment crises.
“Do politicians have the courage to make those who earn money share in the risk as well?” she said in the Bundestag. “This is about the primacy of politics, this is about the limits of the markets.”
Since this spring’s €110bn rescue package for Greece and the creation of the €750bn EFSF, now set to be tapped by Ireland, Ms Merkel has been looking for a permanent mechanism to allow debt-stifled eurozone countries to ask bondholders for a reprieve alongside help from other governments.
The working paper, seen by the FT, suggests collective action clauses should be adopted as early as next year – the expectation being in Berlin that it would take six to eight years for the new bonds to form an actionable majority.
But the finance ministry also wants a permanent liquidity fund to help governments unable to tap financial markets – in effect a successor to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), which at Germany’s insistence will close in mid-2013.
The German finance ministry paper proposes that governments in a budget crisis first draw up adjustment programmes to cut spending and raise revenue – just like Greece and Ireland have done – and ask bondholders for help only in a second step.
Rather than negotiating with each bondholder individually, governments could ask a majority of investors to agree to a blanket extension of the original repayment period, with lower repayments becoming an issue only if this rescheduling did not help.
Flanking this process would be the permanent liquidity fund, backed by eurozone members and the International Monetary Fund, which would start life when the EFSF closed and would provide a bridge from the current system of ad hoc rescues to a more orderly one.
The German government hopes to make headway with constructing the system at the next summit of European Union leaders in mid-December.
