Maximum financial capacity for the ESM and project bonds: this is the recipe for countering the crisis and restarting the economy of the Minister for European Affairs, Enzo Moavero Milanesi. In Brussels for the General Affairs Council, the minister also gives space to address issues not on the agenda, starting with the new bailout fund (the European Stability Mechanism, also known by the English acronym Esm - European stability mechanism) which will come into operation on 1 July. “We are for maximum financial capacity,” he says.
THEESM, he underlines, is "necessary to bring the Eurozone and the EU out of the crisis definitively, and to be credible vis-à-vis the markets", and therefore an agreement on the overall endowment of the fund must absolutely be found. The issue will be the subject of the informal Ecofin meeting later this month, scheduled in Copenhagen on 30 and 31 March, the date by which a final decision should be taken. Moavero suggests, however, that it could 'go beyond'. "The definition of the effective amount of this fund will take place between the end of this month and the beginning of April". Like Italy, concludes Moavero, "we hope that a rapid quantitative definition of the ESM will be reached".
Finally the growth chapter. Here Moavero relaunches the idea of project bonds. “We continue to try new instruments, and we are thinking in particular of project bonds”. It is a means that "we think could lead to additional sources of financing".
