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Germany's Hidden Risk

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Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, has 495 billion euros in claims on the European Central Bank through the interbank payment system known as Target2. Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute in Munich, says the breakup of the Euro zone would mean that this claim would be put at risk. Data compiled by Tornel of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Westermann of the University of Osnabruck, Germany, show Target claims going from 7% of Bundesbank assets in the beginning of 2006 to 64% by October 2011. Collateral on these loans held by the ECB is mainly sovereign debt of the financially weakest ECB countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Losses on these loans are to be distributed among 17 eurozone central banks according to the proportion of their share in ECB capital, with Germany's being 28%. However with dire finances in some countries Germany could end up with a much larger share of losses. This gives Germany one more reason for the statement that the breakup of the eurozone is unthinkable.

Bundesbank, the German central bank

02/16/2011

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The 495 billion in euros of Bundesbank claims on the ECB, with much of the collateral in sovereign debt of financially weak countries, is another reason Germany sees a breakup of the eurozone as unthinkable. Germany would assume a large share of the losses if the eurozone would breakup, much larger than the 28% which is its share of the ECB's capital.

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