Pressure on Germans to help Spain

News first surfaced at the G20 last week that the Germans might allow the EFSF bail-out fund to stretch its brief and buy Spanish and Italian debt to bring down the cost of those government’s borrowing.

Some old summit hands still think Angela Merkel may, with all her strident talk in Germany before coming here, be giving herself political room to do just that before the summer’s out.

Some warn that you shouldn’t expect any great gestures from Germany right now.

The German Chancellor has to race home to the Bundestag tomorrow after lunch to help get through approval for the ESM bail-out fund. Another Brussels source seemed to think it might just happen before this gathering is over tomorrow.

The EU doesn’t want this summit to have a flat ending. Not ideal. Massive issues of seismic importance to individual states will have been discussed for the first time in anything approaching detail.

But the usual routine is to provide a sense of uplift and of resolution even if it doesn’t truly exist. That could be tricky on Friday without help for Spain and Italy.

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