Euro States Should Consider Mandatory Bonds, Zeil Tells Passauer

Troubled euro-region countries such as Spain should tap their citizens’ wealth first before seeking international aid, Bavaria’s Deputy Prime Minister Martin Zeil told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper.

With private wealth in Spain amounting to four times public debt, a “repayable mandatory bond” could help stabilize public finances and should be considered before asking for German taxpayer money, the newspaper cited Zeil, who’s also the state’s economy minister, as saying.

The euro region’s financial backstops should cut off funding if recipients don’t meet their obligations, even at the cost of two or more countries exiting the euro, Zeil said. That would neither lead to a collapse of the euro’s core, nor to the wider “House of Europe,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rainer Buergin in Berlin at rbuergin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net