October 4, 2011
Eurozone finance ministers have put off until next month any decision to give the green light for a further €8bn bailout for Greece despite recognising that the Athens government had made some considerable progress in slashing the country's debts.
Jean-Claude Juncker, Eurogroup chairman, repeatedly made plain early on Tuesday that none of the eurozone countries was urging a Greek default and categorically denied that there was any question of Greece leaving the euro area.
In a move certain to disappoint markets, the 17 finance ministers sent signals they had no intention of agreeing to reboot the zone's rescue fund of €440bn closer to the €2tn or more demanded by leading investors and analysts. EU officials reiterated that there was "no Plan B".
But Juncker and Olli Rehn, the EU economic and monetary affairs commissioner, indicated that ministers had for the first time discussed measures to improve the bailout fund's efficiency and effectiveness in order to raise its firepower – code for raising the guarantees it needs for buying up more government bonds in the secondary market. Juncker said: "We consider that we should by no means increase the fund's financial volume."
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