Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron along with Chancellor George Osborne are putting pressure on Germany to save the euro as Spain suffered a slump. They want the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to use Germany’s financial muscle to stop the euro from total collapse.
David Cameron had emergency talks via a video conference call in which he hammered home the message to both Merkel and new French president Francois Hollande.
The emergency talks came as Spain has been hit with the Greek chaos amidst fears of a run on banks in both countries. Just this last week alone it is said that Greeks have withdrawn around £560million from local banks.
Obviously, the chaos has spread to Spain and there have been reports that Spaniards have taken out £800million over the past week although Bankia have come out and denied such withdrawals.
Spanish owned Santander UK was hit with fears last night as Moody’s, the credit rating agency, downgraded the bank along with 15 other Spanish banks, too.
And fears that Greece will be shown the door regarding the Eurozone was also made manifest as credit agency Fitch downgraded the country.
Chancellor George Osborne has made a statement saying that the Treasury has drawn up emergency plans if Greece happened to quit the single currency.
“Britain will be prepared for whatever comes.” He explained to Mp’s.
And the prime Minister urged that countries such as Greece and Spain could only survive if richer countries did more to “share the burden of adjustment”.
Cameron also backed the Eurobond, which would effectively raise billions to help stabilize countries hit by the crisis. Obviously, such a proposal would have to be bankrolled by Berlin.
During the conference call the Prime Minister urged the eurozone to take “decisive action to ensure financial stability and prevent contagion”.