Passage 2
Building of Europe's Financial Firewall
Paris wanted a strong signal sent to the markets, a financial firewall of one trillion euros available to help struggling euro zone menbers. That was a little too rich for Berlin' s taste, however and the monetary bloc's' finance ministers fnally settled on total of 800 billion.
"This amount is very important because when the Intemnational Monetary Fund and G20 liscussed, their participation depended on what Europe would do. Europe has now clearly fixed this amount.
Out of that total, 300 billion had already been pledged to Greece, Portugal. and Ireland by combining both Europe's temporary rescue fund the EFSF and the new ESM, the European Stability Mechanism. The continent's' new bailout(紧急救助) capacity now stands at 500 billion euros.
"Financial markets want to know if Europe is able to undertake structural reforms that could permanently ensure the stability of the currency and the investments. Here we are making great progress in the member states and the structure of the European currency. That's crucial.
The esm will come online from the first of July and will work in tandem with (和...联合) the existing EFSF for one year.
Europe is expected to undertake some reforms that can permanently ensure the stability of euro.
A、正确
B、错误
【正确答案】：A
【名师解析】:题目中提到巴黎希望向市场发出一个强有力的信号，即建立一个价值一万亿欧元的金融防火墙来帮助欧元区中的困难成员国。然而，柏林方面认为这个数额过于庞大，最终欧元区的财政部长们达成了共识，确定了一个总额为8000亿欧元的金融防火墙。这笔资金的重要性在于，当国际货币基金组织和G20讨论时，他们的参与取决于欧洲将采取的行动。欧洲现在已经明确了这个数额。
在这8000亿欧元中，已经有3000亿欧元通过结合欧洲的临时救助基金EFSF和新的ESM（欧洲稳定机制）承诺给希腊、葡萄牙和爱尔兰。因此，欧洲大陆新的紧急救助能力现在是5000亿欧元。
金融市场希望了解欧洲是否有能力进行结构性改革，以永久确保货币和投资的稳定。在这方面，成员国和欧洲货币结构正在取得巨大进展，这是至关重要的。
ESM将从7月1日开始运作，并与现有的EFSF联合工作一年。
根据题目内容，欧洲确实期望进行一些改革，以永久确保欧元的稳定。因此，题目的答案是正确的，即选项A。
