admincomplete a deal with banks on a big debt write-off for Athens.
As Germany readied for a parliamentary vote on an overall response to the eurozone debt crisis ahead of today’s second emergency EU summit, the European Union mulled a plan for its bailout fund to buy Italian government bonds.
With Italian bond yields still hovering near the six-percent level that triggered large-scale intervention by the European Central Bank in August, a top EU official said it might be “time to put the plan to Italy”.
Europe wants Rome to deliver “measures to show there is no risk of Italy becoming another Greece one day,” another senior source said on condition of anonymity.
Eurozone aid comes with strings attached and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government spent Monday scrambling to agree new budget cuts and reforms before the second summit in four days.
“No one has anything to fear'” over Italy’s debt, Berlusconi said in a statement, adding that there was no need for a lecture from the country’s partners. – AFP.
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