G20集团要求欧盟先积极自救

Eurozone countries need to put more money in their rescue fund before G20 nations can step in to help them, the G20 finance ministers have said.

G20集团财政部长表示，欧盟各国需要投入更多的钱作为储备金，然后G20集团才能介入并帮助他们。

They said such a move was "essential" to their decision to provide more resources to the International Monetary¹ Fund (IMF) to help the region.

Earlier this month, eurozone leaders set up a permanent bail-out fund of 500bn euro ($673bn; £420bn).

There are concerns the fund may not be able to rescue a deeply indebted state.

"We have to see the colour of the eurozone's money first - and quite frankly², that hasn't happened," the British chancellor³ George Osborne said.

"Until it does, there's no question of extra IMF money from Britain or probably anyone else."

The German factor

Any move to boost the eurozone rescue fund is likely to put more pressure on the leading eurozone economies, especially Germany.

The eurozone's biggest economy has so far resisted calls to increase the size of the bail-out fund and sent mixed signals regarding whether it was prepared to change its stance.

On the eve of the G20 meeting, German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble wrote in an article published in the Mexican newspaper El Universal that he was against such a move.

"Should we increase even more the firewalls? The response is a resounding⁴ no," he wrote.

"This would not only not solve the problems of debt and competitiveness that brought the affected⁵ countries to their current state of affairs, it would also discourage their governments from carrying out consolidation⁶（巩固，合并） and reform."

However, after the meeting, Mr Schauble said that eurozone leaders would look into the matter and take a decision as early as next month.

Meanwhile, Olli Rehn, European Commissioner⁷ for Economic and Monetary Affairs urged the region's leaders to solve the issue as soon as possible.

"One of the crucial lessons of this crisis has been that... the longer we wait the more costly⁸ it tends to get," he said.