Merkel se prpare une ventuelle victoire de Hollande
Le Monde.fr avec Reuters | 23.03.2012 20h08 Mis jour le 23.03.2012 20h12

Malgr son soutien explicite la rlection de Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel se prpare discrtement la possibilit de voir Franois Hollande accder la prsidence franaise le 6 mai. La chancelire allemande est intervenue de fait dans la campagne lectorale en France en apportant son soutien "sur tous les plans" au chef de l'Etat sortant le 6 fvrier et en refusant de rencontrer son adversaire socialiste.
Merkels Party Wins Saarland State in Show of Crisis Backing, by Brian Parkin and Tony Czuczka - Mar 25, 2012 1:37 PM MT, Bloomberg News

Merkels Christian Democratic Union took 35.2 percent in todays election to retain power in Saarland, a former coal-and- steel state that borders France and Luxembourg, preliminary results showed. The Social Democrats, the main opposition party nationally, had 30.6 percent, paving the way for a so-called grand coalition with the CDU as senior partner.
Saarland, which represented 1.2 percent of German gross domestic product in 2010, the smallest proportion of any state except the city of Bremen, held elections more than two years early after Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the CDU state premier, dumped the Free Democratic Party in January out of a government that also comprised the Greens. The FDP, Merkels coalition partner at national level, got 1.2 percent in the election, well below the 5 percent threshold needed to win assembly seats.

The anti-capitalist Left Party led by Oskar Lafontaine took 16.1 percent and the Greens 5 percent. The Pirate Party, which campaigns for open internet access, had 7.4 percent, allowing it to enter a second regional parliament after winning seats last year in Berlins state assembly. While the projections showed the Social Democrats and Left with enough seats to form a coalition, Heiko Maas, the SPD state leader, ruled out such an alliance in favor of a coalition with Kramp-Karrenbauer.
Saarland sets the stage for two more state elections this year that offer the latest indication of voter sentiment in Europes largest economy. Next up is Schleswig-Holstein on May 6, then North Rhine-Westphalia, Germanys most populous state, which votes on May 13 after the government collapsed this month.

With almost a quarter of Germanys 82 million people, North Rhine-Westphalia is a bellwether for federal political fortunes. The SPD took the state from Merkels party in May 2010 in a result Merkel blamed on agreeing to a first bailout for Greece days earlier. The result deprived her of a majority in the national upper house, where states are represented, and presaged defeats or a loss of support for her coalition parties in all seven state votes in 2011.
Merkel set to allow firewall to rise, by Peter Spiegel in Saariskel, Finland, Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt and Quentin Peel in Berlin, March 25, 2012 6:47 pm, Financial Times, www.ft.com

Germany is poised to bow to international pressure and allow a temporary increase in the eurozones financial firewall this week, to prevent the crisis in the regions periphery spreading to other member states.
Officials in Berlin signalled on Sunday that the government would allow funds to be boosted as a way of calming financial market pressures.
Senior European officials said a consensus appeared to be building behind Mr Rehns mid-range option, which would allow the 440bn European Financial Stability Facility, the current temporary rescue fund, to keep running when a new permanent 500bn fund, called the European Stability Mechanism, starts up in the middle of this year.

That would boost the rescue systems overall firepower to 940bn, although with about 200bn committed to Greek, Irish and Portuguese bailouts, the total available would be 740bn.
Rumors of a LTRO for Danish Banks?

Danish Private Debt Burden Triggers Central Bank Warning, By Frances Schwartzkopff - Mar 22, 2012 8:31 AM MT, Bloomberg News

Denmarks central bank is stepping up its focus on the countrys record private debt load to ensure households dont suffer losses when interest rates start to rise, Governor Nils Bernstein said.

People who are highly indebted are more vulnerable to interest rates and can be hit hard by changes, Bernstein said in an interview in Copenhagen yesterday. The bank is now conducting a review of the risks, he said.

Households in the AAA rated nation increased their debt burdens to 310 percent of disposable incomes in 2010, the worlds highest ratio, according to Exane BNP Paribas. While the debt is backed by the worlds second-highest pension savings rate after the Netherlands, those assets are locked shut, Bernstein said. The central bank has argued that failure to address the risks may jeopardize the stability of Denmarks $470 billion mortgage bond market.

The goal is to analyze how vulnerable households are to changes in the interest rate, Bernstein said. There are certainly some who are vulnerable. What we want to know is how widespread it is and how vulnerable they are.

Denmarks central bank uses interest rates to maintain the krones peg to the euro. Bernstein lowered the benchmark lending rate to 0.7 percent in December after investors fleeing the euro regions debt crisis turned to the Nordic country, threatening to strengthen the Danish currency.