Talk of IMF grows as EFSF expansion agreed

Eurozone finance ministers are weighing more radical options to strengthen their firewall against the sovereign debt crisis, after acknowledging that plans to expand the €440bn eurozone rescue fund could deliver as little as half the extra punch that was anticipated, says the FT, adding that exploratory discussions at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday evening covered the option of funnelling ECB loans via the IMF to struggling countries. European finance ministers agreed on terms for to expand the EFSF’s firepower on Tuesday night via insuring 20 to 30 per cent of sovereign debt issues and trying to attract private investors into sovereign debt funds, but the deal is increasingly seen as “yesterday’s solution”, as it will not be able to leverage up enough to arrest the region’s crisis, says the FT. Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, has told Handelsblatt that the EFSF was too “intricate and complex” for investors to understand, says The Telegraph.