AudryDoherty569: New page: Finance ministers in Copenhagen have agreed to increase the size of the eurozone's rescue funds. Eurozone countries agreed to boost the joint lending power of the "firewall" from 500bn to...

2012-03-31T22:12:55Z

New page: Finance ministers in Copenhagen have agreed to increase the size of the eurozone's rescue funds. Eurozone countries agreed to boost the joint lending power of the "firewall" from 500bn to...

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Finance ministers in Copenhagen have agreed to increase the size of the eurozone's rescue funds.

Eurozone countries agreed to boost the joint lending power of the "firewall" from 500bn to 800bn euros ($1.1tn; �667bn).

The firewall is the permanent mechanism to bail out troubled eurozone nations.

But in reality, what the eurozone countries are doing is making commitments available earlier that they had already agreed to give.

As Spain and Italy's finances have looked more precarious, investors have been worried about whether the eurozone's firewall could cope with more bailouts.

The new enlarged fund, combined with what the International Monetary Fund has agreed to lend to the eurozone, should be enough to cope with a new crisis, some suggest.

"Including the IMF commitments, this is enough to take care of Italy and Spain for the next three years and that was the point of this exercise," Christoph Weil, senior economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, told the BBC.

He added that he did not think Spain and Italy would require bailouts.

Others were less convinced.

"Today's decision is a classic European compromise," said Carsten Brzeski, economist at ING bank in Brussels.

"It was as far as the German government was willing to go and it was the minimum most other eurozone countries were expecting.

"A bigger increase... could have sent a stronger signal and would have been more convincing," he said.

IMF head Christine Lagarde welcomed the move.

"The IMF has long emphasised that enhanced European and global firewalls, together with the implementation of strong policy frameworks, are critical for ending the crisis and securing international financial stability," she said.

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AudryDoherty569: New page: Finance ministers in Copenhagen have agreed to increase the size of the eurozone's rescue funds. Eurozone countries agreed to boost the joint lending power of the "firewall" from 500bn to...