ECB official proposes eurozone budget to back reforms

(BERLIN) - A leading European Central Bank official floated the idea Thursday of a special eurozone budget to help crisis-hit countries finance some of the reforms needed to get their economies in order.

Revisiting an idea first put forward by EU president Herman Van Rompuy in December 2012, but since lain dormant, ECB executive board member Joerg Asmussen suggested that 15-20 billion euros ($20-27 billion) could be set aside to help ease the financial burden of sometimes painful reforms.

In return, there could be binding "contractual agreements" laying down "which reforms a country must implement within such and such a timeframe," Asmussen told a conference in the German capital.

Initially, member states would pay into such a fund, but "in the longer term, we have to think about other ways of financing it," Asmussen said.

The ECB official believed that "we will have to think about a eurozone parliament. That would be my idea," Asmussen said.