Nearly half of Germans back court's OK of euro fund

(BERLIN) - Nearly half of Germans support a ruling by the country's top court approving ratification of a eurozone bailout fund under certain conditions, according to a new poll.

Some 48 percent of those questioned in the survey for ZDF public television said they believed the Constitutional Court's decision on Wednesday was right, compared to 39 percent who did not agree with it.

However only 27 percent said they thought the Karlsruhe-based court adequately took Germany's interests into account while 61 percent said they did not believe the decision did.

And 78 percent said they doubted that the establishment of the ESM bailout fund to help struggling eurozone nations decisively advanced efforts to resolve the near three-year crisis, the poll showed.

The poll was carried out by telephone on Wednesday among 1,013 people.

In a closely watched ruling, the court rejected a raft of legal challenges which had sought to prevent Germany signing into law two key crisis-fighting tools, the 500-billion-euro ($620-billion) ESM and European "golden rules" imposing budgetary discipline.

But it insisted that Germany's liability to the ESM be capped at 190 billion euros and that in the event of any increase, parliamentary approval was required.