German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed on Tuesday that Europe must unite to combat the financial crisis — but again rejected the idea of a Europe-wide bailout fund, and criticized Ireland’s unilateral move to set up a sweeping bank guarantee.
Merkel welcomed a commitment by EU governments to rescue failing banks in their countries that could affect other nations.
“We must be able to rely on that in Europe,” she told parliament. “Of course we need coherent, common action.”
She pointed to divisions across Europe over wider-ranging efforts to stem problems on the continent. EU governments have avoided copying the US with a massive bailout to buy up bad debt from banks and help unfreeze lending.
“Of course, the question arises of how national actions can be enmeshed with European ones, and I want to say which ways are not appropriate from my point of view,” Merkel said.
She singled out “the Irish way — stretching a shield over one’s own financial institutions, not including other international institutions that also have long paid taxes in Ireland, and so producing competitive distortions that, from my point of view, are not acceptable in an internal market.”
Ireland guaranteed not only 100 percent of bank deposits but loans to its banks from other banks. British banks have criticized the move as anticompetitive.
Merkel said it was also unacceptable for “27 member states to set up a shield and everyone to pay into a fund, in order then ... to conduct crisis management in individual member states.”
She said such a fund “is not conducive to a fast ability to act.”
Merkel has portrayed a pledge her government made on Sunday to guarantee all private bank deposits as in line with European efforts to act together.
She repeated the pledge on Tuesday, declaring: “I say again here that this statement stands.”
On Sunday, the German government helped put together a rescue package for distressed commercial property lender Hypo Real Estate AG (HRE) worth US$69 billion.
Merkel said doing nothing would have resulted in “unpredictable” consequences and noted that her government had pressed for a change of management. She welcomed HRE’s announcement of CEO Georg Funke’s resignation.
“We think that this is the necessary precondition for re-establishing confidence in this company, and we are betting that this will succeed,” she told lawmakers.
Later on Tuesday, HRE announced that Axel Wieandt, 42 — currently global head of Deutsche Bank AG’s corporate investments division — will take over as the new CEO on Oct. 13.
Merkel said the crisis underlines the need for moves such as better regulation of rating agencies — along with more effective use of laws by which managers can be called to account for malpractice and new legislation if necessary.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
RSS