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August 03, 2011 at 09:30 AM
Italy looked to the euro zone for political help on Wednesday as its bonds were hammered in the midst of a huge selloff. Markets continued to react to fears of debt contagion and a world economic slowdown; both Italy and Spain suffered, with 10-year bonds for each commanding 14-year high yields that in turn worried markets further.
Reuters reported that in emergency talks, Giulio Tremonti, Italy’s economy minister, met with Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the euro zone’s group of finance ministers. Silvio Berlusconi, the country’s prime minister, was scheduled to address Parliament later in the day in an effort to soothe roiling markets. Berlusconi has been staying out of the public eye of late, challenged with his own troubles.
Although a July summit meeting granted the euro zone’s rescue fund new authority to purchase bonds on the secondary market or to provide peripheral states with precautionary credit lines, neither of those new powers can be utilized until euro zone member parliaments approve them—something not expected till late September at the earliest.
In the meantime, the European Central Bank (ECB) could relaunch its bond buying program, which has not been active for four months. A similar move did help ease the situation last year.
