Press Release: The Council raises the ceiling for assistance available for a Member State in financial difficulty

The Council today (2.12.08) adopted a Regulation raising the ceiling for assistance available under the EU support facility providing medium-term balance-of-payments assistance for non-euro area Member States in financial difficulty. The text amends Regulation (EC) No 332/2002, on which the facility is based, in order to increase the total amount of loans available to EUR 25 billion from the current EUR 12 billion. The facility only concerns Member States whose currency is not the euro. The higher ceiling is justified by the evolution of the international economic situation and by the large number of Member States currently outside the euro area – 11 out of 27 in
2009, as against 3 out of 15 when the facility was created in 2002.