ECB ready to buy Italian, Spanish debt
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Xinhua, August 8, 2011
The European Central Bank was ready to buy the Italian and Spanish debts if investors are reluctant do so, local media quoted French Finance Minister Francois Baroin as saying on Monday morning.
Given the measures announced by Spain and Italy over the weekend to tackle their debt issues, "the ECB ... consider(s) that, in the right direction, it is legitimate to aid them," Baroin local radio Europe1.
The ECB has announced "without ambiguity its intervention to purchase Italian and Spanish debt if it has to take the adventure of investors that withdraw," he said.
The French minister, also host of the 2011 forum of Group of 20 and Group of Seven, underlined "a willingness, an obligation and a requirement" for all countries to return to an "acceptable deficit level" in the face of the debt crisis.
According to European commission forecasts in May, Italy boasted a debt of 1.8 trillion euros (2.58 trillion U.S. dollars), or 120 percent of its gross domestic product this year, making it the euro zone's biggest bond market.
Meanwhile, Spain, with a debt to GDP ratio of just 68.1 percent, lower than that of France and Germany, had the region's third highest budget deficit at 9.2 percent last year, only following Greece and Ireland.
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