Europe Sets Firewall Kitty at 500 Billion

By TraderVox.com

Tradervox (Dublin) – European Finance Ministers have capped the firewall kitty at 500 billion Euros after Germany led a coalition to oppose a further expansion of the region’s firewall power.  This comes as a shock to traders who were expecting a consensus in building a larger firewall kitty. However, the 500 billion lending capacity excludes the 300 billion Euros already given to Ireland, Greece, and Portugal.

Therefore the overall size up to 2013 will be 800 billion Euros but after that the kitty will be at 500 billion Euros. The Finance Ministers did not approve the use of the remaining 240 billion Euros in the EFSF but they indicated that the money would be used to add to the ESM kitty to its full amount of 500 billion dollars.

Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter was the first to talk to the press at the meeting indicating that the European leaders have now acted as expected by the IMF and as agreed at the G-20 meeting. Maria Fekter was also quick to add that the sum fixed is important and now the EU is expecting the pledges from the IMF to follow. Euro zone is counting on the pledged amount and the 1 trillion Euros injected by the ECB as a stimulus package.

This new development will affect the bullish trend of the euro as it was expected that the European leaders would endorse an expansion of the kitty to 940 billion Euros. Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager indicated that incase the 500 billion in fresh capital is not available the region guarantees the availability of the 240 billion Euros in the EFSF. In reality, this is the only amount that is available excluding the 308 billion Euros that have already been committed to Portugal, Ireland and Greece.

The Chairman of the Finance Ministers meeting canceled his press briefing after the Austrian Finance minster talked to the press before him. Traders are looking forward to a formal statement from the Chairman of the Finance Ministers Jean-Claude Juncker.

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