The European Central Bank will examine Germany's proposal for the creation of a European Monetary Fund to bailout crisis countries in the future, the bank's President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Wednesday.
"We don't reject the idea at this stage. We have to look at it and look at the details," media reports quote Trichet as saying in Frankfurt.
Trichet stressed that his understanding was that a European Monetary Fund would provide "non-concessional financial support with strong conditionality".
On Tuesday, ECB governing council member Axel Weber expressed reservation on the proposal, saying the idea diverts attention from the necessary fiscal consolidation.
Weber, who is also the President of the Bundesbank, said talk of the "institutionalization of emergency help" was counterproductive when countries like Greece should be concentrating fully on balancing their books.
The idea of a European Monetary Fund was raised after Greece's woes in the international financial market raised fresh concerns about whether other debt-ridden states like Spain and Portugal can repay their debts.
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