“European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet said governments should consider setting up a finance ministry for the 17-nation currency region as the bloc struggles to contain a region-wide sovereign debt crisis.
“Would it be too bold, in the economic field, with a single market, a single currency and a single central bank, to envisage a ministry of finance of the union?” Trichet said in a speech today in Aachen,Germany. He also favors giving the European Union powers to veto the budget measures of countries that go “harmfully astray,” though that would require a change to EU Treaties.
Trichet, one of the architects of the Maastricht Treaty that founded the euro, is setting out his vision for how the currency can be better managed just months before he retires and as European officials rush to put together a second bailout plan for Greece. Last year’s 110 billion-euro ($159 billion) rescue failed to prevent an investor Exodus from Greece, which has been saddled with Europe’s highest debt load amid a three-year economic slump.
Ireland and Portugal also had to ask for European aid as borrowing costs soared on concern the countries wouldn’t be able to tame their budget deficits.”
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