BERLIN (Dow Jones)--The German government Monday played down the heightened risk that the euro-zone bailout fund will lose its top rating now that Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has cut the credit score of nine countries contributing to the fund.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the European Financial Stability Facility has enough government support to fulfill its existing obligations and in any event will soon be supplanted by a financial aid system that is less vulnerable to cuts in credit ratings.
"The government has no reason to doubt that the EFSF can fulfill its current tasks with the guarantee volume it has," Seibert said at a regular government news conference.
Earlier Monday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also insisted the EFSF would be able to cover its current commitments. In an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio, Schaeuble reaffirmed Germany's opposition to raising its ceiling of EUR211 billion in guarantees to the bailout fund.
So far the euro zone has tapped the EFSF twice, to fund rescue packages for Ireland and Portugal. The currency bloc plans to use a big chunk of the remaining EUR250 billion to help finance a EUR130 billion bailout for Greece. It will be Greece's second bailout. The first was agreed in May 2010, before the fund was created.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services late Friday stripped France and Austria of their triple-A credit ratings. It also reduced the ratings of seven other euro-zone nations, including Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Ahead of the announcement S&P had warned that a downgrade of any triple-A euro nation could cost the EFSF its own top rating since the fund depends on government backing. Four euro-zone countries retain their triple-A rating: Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Kotthaus said it remains unclear whether the EFSF will be downgraded.
Its successor, the European Stability Mechanism, won't depend as much on ratings as it will have a different structure, including a cash capital base, he said, speaking at the same conference as Seibert.
The ESM will include an EUR80 billion cash component, to be provided gradually by euro zone countries.
Finance ministers meeting next week are expected to give final approval for moving forward the start date of the ESM to mid-2012 from mid-2013, Kotthaus said. Still in question, though, is how much of the ESM's cash component will be provided at the start.
Last week Merkel said Germany is willing to accelerate its contributions. Germany had planned to make five annual payments to the ESM of EUR4.3 billion each.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said the government will present a supplementary budget midyear to account for payments into the ESM.
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