Passage 2
Building of Europe's Financial Firewall
Paris wanted a strong signal sent to the markets, a financial firewall of one trillion euros available to help struggling euro zone menbers. That was a little too rich for Berlin' s taste, however and the monetary bloc's' finance ministers fnally settled on total of 800 billion.
"This amount is very important because when the Intemnational Monetary Fund and G20 liscussed, their participation depended on what Europe would do. Europe has now clearly fixed this amount.
Out of that total, 300 billion had already been pledged to Greece, Portugal. and Ireland by combining both Europe's temporary rescue fund the EFSF and the new ESM, the European Stability Mechanism. The continent's' new bailout(紧急救助) capacity now stands at 500 billion euros.
"Financial markets want to know if Europe is able to undertake structural reforms that could permanently ensure the stability of the currency and the investments. Here we are making great progress in the member states and the structure of the European currency. That's crucial.
The esm will come online from the first of July and will work in tandem with (和...联合) the existing EFSF for one year.

EFSF is equal to the Economic Stability Mechanism.