Germany Opposes Any European Finance Bailout: Minister

BERLIN (AFP)--Germany's Economy Minister Michael Glos rejected the idea of a European financial bailout in a German newspaper interview, as European leaders prepared for Saturday's summit on the global financial crisis.

"An emergency European plan, such as the one currently being discussed by the banks, is a distraction from what they themselves must do," Glos told the Bild am Sonntag in an interview to appear Sunday.

The banks must "put in place measures to restore mutual confidence," Glos said, adding: "There is no more confidence in the banks. That is the primary cause of the financial crisis."

Glos declared bankers were "very well paid" and that it time for them "to show they deserve their salaries."

"To ask the government to put taxpayers' money at risk by creating a fund to reduce debt ...and ward off the loss of confidence to me seems unjustifiable," Glos said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, also current president of the European Union, has called a mini-summit of Europe's four biggest economies in Paris Saturday afternoon.

German Chancellor Angela Merket, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will be in attendance.

The finance summit will also bring together the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet; the head of Eurogroup and prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker; and European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.

European leaders are hoping to forge a common position on how to tackle the financial storm sparked by the US banking crisis ahead of the Group of Eight meeting of finance ministers in Washington next week.

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October 04, 2008 05:03 ET (09:03 GMT)


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