03/11/2017 (Agence Europe) – The President of the Bundesbank considers that the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) should supervise the public finances of the Eurozone countries, to put an end to the conflict of interests inherent to the European Commission, a political body responsible for applying the EU budgetary rules. “I suggest that the ESM be tasked with analysing the public finance situation of the member states, preferably on the basis of simpler and clearer rules”, Jens Weidmann told the daily newspaper Les Échos, on Friday 3 November (our translation throughout). The Eurozone's permanent bailout fund should, if necessary, “coordinate the states' debt restructurings”, he added, not fully ruling out the possibility that a member state could one day become insolvent. He went on to propose that the ESM lending conditions include an automatic three-year extension of the debt maturity of the country using it. (MB)