Comece backing for Greece bailout

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, in a statement as president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (Comece) in Brussels, has welcomed the EU agreement to bail out Greece and said Europe needed stronger coordination of economic policies to avoid such crises, writes Tom Heneghan.

The EU must now restore “the trust lost in recent months” and keep the needs of the poor and disadvantaged in mind while elaborating the steps needed to implement the deal, said the cardinal, who is Archbishop of Munich and president of the German bishops’ conference.

Calling for “a calmer climate in Europe”, Cardinal Marx said the Church had always supported European unification and seen the EU as “a project of reconcili­ation, not of division”. EU leaders last week announced a new €86 billion (£60bn) bailout to save the Greek economy, in return for new ­spending cuts and higher taxes.