Hank Paulson had his bazooka plan, now David Cameron has gone one step further, calling for a “big bazooka” approach to tackling the eurozone crisis.
Cameron calls for five things:
- Recapitalisation of eurozone banks
- More money for the eurozone bailout fund
- Greece’s economic future to be clarified
- The IMF to pressurise countries to do more to tackle the crisis
- The deepening of the single market and improved eurozone governance
What’s more, Cameron insists the Eurozone can’t pick and choose between these measures – they need to be taken as a whole. As he told the FT:
That’s the menu. It’s not à la carte – you have to do the whole thing.
Some of his measures are fairly vague, and understandably so – he doesn’t want to give the impression he is handing out detailed instructions to other heads of government or international institutions.
But even this quite moderate of interventions has the potential to upset Sarkozy, Merkel and others; that is, if they are paying any attention at all to what the UK – which refuses to contribute to the Eurozone bailout except through the IMF – has to say on the matter.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey