MARSEILLE, France—The German government has nominated Jörg Asmussen to succeed Jürgen Stark on the executive board of the European Central Bank, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Saturday. At a news conference after weekend meetings of the finance ministers and central-bank governors of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, Mr. Schaeuble said he hoped that Mr. Asmussen would be able to assume Mr. Stark's duties toward the end of the year. Jörg Asmussen, Germany's deputy finance minister, has been nominated to the executive board of the ECB. Mr. Asmussen is currently deputy finance minister. His position there is something of an anomaly, as he is a member of the Social Democratic Party in a center-right government of Christian Democrats and Free Democrats. He originally had been appointed by the previous finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, who served under Chancellor Angela Merkel in a "Grand Coalition" until autumn 2009. Finance Minister Schaeuble had kept him on because of his first-hand experience of the first wave of the financial crisis. Mr. Schaeuble said he had notified Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the euro group of finance ministers, of the government's proposal earlier Saturday. The proposal must be endorsed first by the euro group and the euro-zone's heads of state, and the European Parliament and the ECB itself must also be consulted. With Mr. Asmussen having accumulated profound experience of the euro zone's debt crisis over the past three years, and with the substantial political will of Germany behind the proposal, it is unlikely that the nomination will fail. 
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Sunday, September 11, 2011
MARSEILLE, France—The German government has nominated Jörg Asmussen to succeed Jürgen Stark on the executive board of the European Central Bank, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Saturday. At a news conference after weekend meetings of the finance ministers and central-bank governors of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, Mr. Schaeuble said he hoped that Mr. Asmussen would be able to assume Mr. Stark's duties toward the end of the year. Jörg Asmussen, Germany's deputy finance minister, has been nominated to the executive board of the ECB. Mr. Asmussen is currently deputy finance minister. His position there is something of an anomaly, as he is a member of the Social Democratic Party in a center-right government of Christian Democrats and Free Democrats. He originally had been appointed by the previous finance minister, Peer Steinbrück, who served under Chancellor Angela Merkel in a "Grand Coalition" until autumn 2009. Finance Minister Schaeuble had kept him on because of his first-hand experience of the first wave of the financial crisis. Mr. Schaeuble said he had notified Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the euro group of finance ministers, of the government's proposal earlier Saturday. The proposal must be endorsed first by the euro group and the euro-zone's heads of state, and the European Parliament and the ECB itself must also be consulted. With Mr. Asmussen having accumulated profound experience of the euro zone's debt crisis over the past three years, and with the substantial political will of Germany behind the proposal, it is unlikely that the nomination will fail. 
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Mr. Asmussen's nomination to the ECB is resonant for another reason. Like the new Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, he is a former student of Axel Weber, the university professor-turned-central banker who seemed destined to be the next head of the ECB before his own shock resignation in February. Mr. Weber had criticized the ECB's bond-buying program more explicitly, and appeared reluctant to accept a position where he would be repeatedly outvoted on the issue.
Elsewhere in the news conference, Mr. Schaeuble repeated that Greece must meet the conditions set for it by its official creditors before the next tranche of aid will be disbursed. He said that both the euro zone's governments and the International Monetary Fund were agreed on this.
He also dismissed suggestions that Greece would go bankrupt if the tranche isn't disbursed on time, noting that the country had moved up the issuance of short-term debt to bolster its cash balances. Greece earlier this week sold €1.45 billion ($1.98 billion) of six-month treasury bills.
The giant public-sector slimming—as many as 120,000 public workers could be eliminated—that Greece is contemplating threatens to upend decades of cozy ties between the ruling Socialist party and those workers, who have long formed a key constituency.
Earlier this week, nine Socialist lawmakers criticized the plan in a letter to ministers. Mr. Papandreou has only a slender margin in Parliament, and a government collapse would be debilitating.
Meanwhile, Thessaloniki is preparing for massive unrest this weekend. Police are erecting metal barricades to prevent protestors from storming the grounds of the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair, where Mr. Papandreou will deliver his speech.
"The protests this year seem likely to be much bigger than in any past year," said one police official in the city. "But the situation in Greece is very difficult, so there are more things to protest about."
Inspectors from the EU are conducting a regular review of Greece's progress this month—a review that already has been halted once amid concerns that the country won't hit deficit targets. The budget inspectors must sign off before Greece receives its next slice of the first bailout.
The second bailout, struck in July, is a consequence of two miscalculations in the first bailout. First, the accretion of wider-than-expected deficits means Greece needs more money than originally planned. Second, the bailout planners assumed Greece would be able to borrow long-term money on its own from financial markets. That won't happen any time soon.
Key to achieving consent for the second bailout was a plan for Greece's private-sector creditors to defer repayment on their loans for as much as 30 years, and in some cases to suffer losses on their principal. That alleviates some of the need for fresh public money.
That program targets €135 billion in deferments, or about 90% of the volume of Greek bonds maturing through 2020. But a top official of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said this week that investors holding only about 75% of the relevant Greek bonds have agreed to participate.
Greece had asked bondholders to return questionnaires about their willingness by Friday; results weren't available Friday night.
Hung Tran, deputy managing director of the Institute of International Finance, the financial-industry trade group that assembled the debt-restructuring plan, said meetings with bondholders would continue this month, and that it was impossible to give a figure for participation. But, he said, he has seen a "very high degree of interest" among holders and is confident that the 90% target will be met
El presidente de la Comisión Europea, José Manuel Durao Barroso, ha admitido que el crecimiento económico de la Eurozona será modesto, pero descartó que esté próxima una recesión.
Barroso contradice de esta forma a Christine Lagarde, directora gerente del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI). Lagard advierte sobre el riesgo de que la economía mundial vuelva a entrar en recesión de forma "inminente", en una entrevista publicada el domingo la revista alemana 'Der Spiegel'.
"Nosotros no anticipamos una recesión en Europa", dijo Barroso en una rueda de prensa conjunta con la primera ministra de Australia, Julia Gillard, en la ciudad de Canberra.
"Los últimos pronósticos de la Comisión Europea muestran que habrá crecimiento -es cierto que será modesto- en toda la Unión Europea", agregó Barroso al inicio de una gira oficial con escalas en Australia y Nueva Zelanda.
El líder europeo, que concluirá su gira por Oceanía el próximo 9 de septiembre también subrayó que la Unión Europea (UE) y el euro son fuertes y resistentes.
"Estamos haciendo todo lo posible: afrontar desde los problemas presupuestarios subyacentes hasta el fortalecimiento del manejo de la eurozona con el endurecimiento de las regulaciones financieras y mejoras en nuestra competitividad en general", apuntó el líder europeo.
Respecto a los problemas de la deuda en Grecia, Durao Barroso explicó que una misión de la llamada 'troika', formada por funcionarios de la Comunidad Europea, el Banco Central Europeo y el Fondo Monetario Internacional analiza actualmente los esfuerzos del Gobierno de Atenas para cumplir las medidas de ajuste.
En ese sentido, el líder europeo enfatizó que aún es "prematuro" emitir una valoración en torno a los esfuerzos de Grecia respecto a sus obligaciones como parte de las ayudas de rescate, en un contexto en que un organismo parlamentario griego ha señalado que es probable que en 2011 no se cumplan los objetivos de consolidación fiscal.
Barroso indicó que se siente satisfecho de ver que la Unión Europea y Australia trabajan juntos para resistir a cualquier forma de proteccionismo y profundizar la liberalización de sus mercados, tras elogiar al gobierno de Canberra por haber sido Australia el "único país desarrollado" que evitó los efectos de la pasada crisis financiera.
Barroso indicó que un impuesto como el que se ha propuesto por la Comunidad Europea para las transacciones financieras hubiera aliviado la carga del sector hace tres años.
"Creemos que la industria financiera debería hacer una contribución más importante a la comunidad", acotó Barroso ante Gillard, quien expresó que su Gobierno no comparte este tipo de medidas.
Sin embargo, Gillard reconoció los pasos adoptados por las autoridades europeas para hacer frente a la deuda soberana y presionar hacia una reforma
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