Europe signs fiscal pact, hails Greek progress

European leaders on Friday signed a new fiscal pact aimed at strengthening budget rules across the euro zone, hailed progress by Greece toward finally receiving its second bailout and signaled a willingness to speed up the funding of the euro zone’s permanent bailout fund.

As expected, the leaders made no commitment to boosting the size of the euro zone’s firewall, but did agree to speed payments of capital into the region’s permanent rescue fund, the 500 billion euro European Stability Mechanism. The ESM will replace the temporary European Financial Stability Facility at midyear. 

“As expected, the latest EU summit proved to be a non-event, and was characterized by a rare show of harmony. With the more difficult discussions centered on foreign policy issues, such as Syria, there was little to set the pulse racing on the economic policy front,” wrote strategists at Daiwa Capital Markets. 

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