Merkel pushes for greater budget discipline

German chancellor Angela Merkel and Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann have rejected calls for decisive intervention of the European Central Bank to rein in the crisis which is threatening to escalate.

Speaking separately Merkel and Weidmann separately, instead urged Europe to move towards greater budgetary discipline, and forget quick-fix solutions following the failure of another EU summit to resolve the euro zone's debt crisis.

Merkel told parliament yesterday that though it would take years, not weeks, before Europe resolved its debt problems, it would emerge stronger "if we have the necessary patience and endurance, if we do not let reversals get us down, if we consistently move towards a fiscal and stability union".

"The German government has always made it clear that the European debt crisis is not to be solved with a single blow. There is no such single blow," she said.

Weidmann, an influential voice in the European Commercial Bank, stressed his  opposition to ramping up purchases of troubled euro zone states' debt, saying he did not support the existing limited bond-buying programme and even its supporters were growing sceptical.

He added that any provision of fresh funding by the Bundesbank to the International Monetary Fund to help fight the euro zone crisis would be conditional on countries beyond Europe also doing so.