Schaeuble, Lagarde Cancel Talks as Aid Plan Drafted
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Bad weather forced German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and his French counterpart, Christine Lagarde, to cancel planned talks in the border city of Strasbourg today as euro-region governments draw up plans aimed at containing the debt crisis.
German ministry officials drafted a proposal that includes standby credit lines, bond purchases and supervision by national parliaments to replace the current rescue facility for over-indebted euro countries that expires in 2013. The blueprint, reported earlier in Sueddeutsche Zeitung, was written at staff level and has not been shown to or approved by policy makers, according to a Finance Ministry statement today.