Euro region’s boost to bailout fund falls short of 1 trillion-euro target

Euro-area finance ministers approved enhancements to their bailout fund while backing off from setting a target for its firepower and seeking a greater role for the International Monetary Fund in fighting the debt crisis. The finance chiefs of the 17 nations using the euro agreed to work on boosting the resources of the IMF so it can “cooperate more closely” with the European Financial Stability Facility, Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters late yesterday in Brussels after leading the meeting. “It’s very important that the IMF globally will increase its resources either by raising its capital or by bilateral loans so that it can lend more money to euro-zone countries in need,” Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said. “If we open the IMF effort, that will be sufficient together with the leverage options in the EFSF.” Euro-area ministers agreed to a plan to guarantee up to 30 percent of new bond issues from troubled governments and to develop investment vehicles that would boost the facility’s ability to intervene in primary and secondary bond markets.