TOKYO (Reuters) – The European Central Bank could start its bond-buying scheme to help Spain as soon as Madrid signs a deal with the euro zone’s ESM bailout fund, without waiting for any ESM money actually being disbursed, ECB board member Benoit Coeure said on Friday.

Coeure said the ECB stood ready to fire its “bazooka” of unlimited government bond purchases as soon as Madrid signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Stability Mechanism — the 500 billion euro permanent bailout fund.

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – Euro zone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund held a “thorough and robust” debate on Greece on Monday, but failed to make significant progress in deciding how best to get the country back on track with its bailout programme.

Ministers spent more than two hours discussing an upcoming report by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the IMF – known as the troika – on Greece’s debt-reduction programme, with divergences emerging inside the euro zone and with the IMF over how best to proceed, officials said.

BRUSSELS, Oct 8 (Reuters) – The euro zone economy will
shrink more than expected this year and barely grow in 2013
because of an escalation of the sovereign debt crisis, which
will remain the main risk to growth, the International Monetary
Fund said on Monday.

“The highest policy priority in Europe is to resolve the
crisis in the euro area. Resolving the euro area crisis requires
progress toward banking and fiscal union in combination with
short-term demand support and crisis management at the euro area
level,” the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook.

LUXEMBOURG, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Euro zone finance ministers
delivered a united defence of Spain on Monday, saying the
country was taking steps to overhaul its economy, funding itself
successfully in the financial markets and did not need a
bailout, at least for now.

Arriving at a meeting in Luxembourg to discuss Greece and
Spain and to inaugurate the euro zone’s permanent bailout
mechanism, the ESM, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble
said Madrid had made clear it wanted no help.

BRUSSELS, Oct 8 (Reuters) – Euro zone finance ministers will
launch their 500 billion euro ($653.00 billion) permanent
bailout fund on Monday, putting in place a major defence against
the debt crisis that now threatens Spain.

The fund, called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM),
will be used to lend to distressed euro zone sovereigns in
return for strict fiscal and structural reforms that aim to put
economies that have lost investor trust back on track.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Euro zone finance ministers will formally launch the euro zone’s permanent, 500-billion-euro bailout fund on Monday, bolstering the single currency area’s defenses against the sovereign debt crisis that is now threatening Spain.

The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will be used to lend to distressed euro zone sovereigns in return for fiscal and structural reforms that put the economy of a country that lost investor trust back on track.

BRUSSELS, Oct 1 (Reuters) – Europe will tell the United
States, Japan and Canada next week that it is acting to resolve
its sovereign debt crisis, but that U.S. fiscal policy and
slowing growth in Japan and China also pose risks to the global
economy.

Finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Britain will
meet those from the other major developed economies in the Group
of Seven at a dinner in Tokyo on Oct. 11.

BRUSSELS, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Europe is unlikely to deliver
fully on a promise to cut its representation on the IMF’s
24-member board by the fund’s Tokyo meeting next month, European
officials said, which may irk emerging market countries that
accuse Europe of foot-dragging.

Cutting the European presence on the board is part of a
package of reforms approved in 2010 by the IMF’s membership to
give emerging market countries greater say in the global lender,
where critics say Europe is over-represented with eight seats.

BRUSSELS, Sept 17 (Reuters) – All European Union countries
under surveillance for exceeding budget deficit limits should be
given an extra year to meet their goals, Bruegel, an influential
think-tank whose proposals often inform EU policy, said in a
paper on Monday.

Extra time would allow the countries to better balance the
need for economic growth with the demands of austerity and so
regain market confidence after almost three years of the
sovereign debt crisis, Bruegel said.

BRUSSELS, Sept 17 (Reuters) – A slowdown in euro zone
exports in July, plus muted wage growth, could increase the odds
for an interest rate cut by the European Central Bank before the
end of the year to try to revive the region’s economy.

The export data, published on Monday, showed the heightened
risks of the euro zone sliding into recession in the third
quarter after it contracted 0.2 percent year-on-year in the
second quarter.