The permanent European bailout fund, ESM, should be granted a banking licence enabling it to borrow in the European Central Bank’s refinancing operations, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said in an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel. “If we manage to get debt brakes into the constitutions of member states and maintain stricter controls on frugal budgetary policy, then we need to take the next step toward further safeguards. I am therefore in favor of the ESM being granted a banking concession, enabling it to refinance with the ECB,” Faymann told the magazine. The ECB has thus far rejected this idea, noting ... (full story)