French Budget Minister Valerie Pecresse Monday said she hoped a plan would be agreed at the euro-zone summit Thursday to bail out Greece, noting that the last issue to clear was the participation of the private sector in the collective effort.
Speaking in an interview with French television channel LCI, Pecresse noted that the role played by rating agencies had been pro-cyclical, actually worsening issues.
Euro-zone leaders are to meet Thursday to hash out a new funding package for Greece.
Euro-zone governments and the European Central Bank have been arguing for three months about whether banks and other bondholders should be made to share the burden of funding Greece, with the ECB and some national governments arguing that imposing costs on private investors could wreck the market's confidence in many other euro countries.
But Germany, Europe's biggest economy, has insisted there can be no new money for Greece without private-sector involvement, and is now close to a deal that would impose Berlin's will on the euro zone.
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