Brussels - Europe is working on strengthening the EFSF, the Stability Fund (or bailout fund) for member countries in difficulty. The president and managing director of the Fund, Klaus Regling, drafted and presented a document to make this instrument stronger through "two different approaches: partial credit protection and co-financing", as he explained yesterday evening at the press conference at the end of the Eurogroup meeting. As for the first option, given that the bonds are issued by the member states, "it is necessary to increase the demand for the issue of securities, thus reducing the cost of financing".
For the second aspect, "we will proceed with the creation of one or more CIFs - co-investment funds, with which to mobilize a mix of public-private resources in order to thus have additional liquidity". These Cifs, which will replace the Spivs (Special purpose investment vehicles), Regling specified, "are designed to help member states" in difficulty. Both measures, however, "are not mutually exclusive", so both could be adopted. However, this will be established later: in fact, a period of consultations begins, after which it will be possible to establish whether and how this document will be accepted and implemented. “If implemented, the new regime will start in December,” Regling teased.
