Europe's debt crisis strategy suffers setback

BERLIN: Europe’s new strategy on resolving the debt crisis suffered a setback when Germany’s highest court ordered a stay on the setting up of a special parliamentary fasttrack committee to decide on the allocation of funds from the eurozone’s emergency bailout facility.

The committee was constituted earlier this week and its inaugural session was scheduled for Friday. However, that meeting was cancelled following the court order.

The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe issued an injunction against the nine-member parliamentary control committee on the European Financial stability Facility (EFSF) and barred it from taking any decisions on the allocation of rescue funds until all doubts about its constitutionality are cleared.

The court order will make future allocation of Germany’s share of 211 billion euros in the bailout fund a long and weary process as the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, will have be fully involved in taking every decision on EFSF.