Eurozone finance ministers launch bailout fund

"It is hard to be optimistic about a region as heavily indebted as Europe, or Western Europe, when the region's economy is [heading] into a very deep slump," said Simon Tilford, of the CER. "So any sort of optimism we see at the moment is likely to prove very short lived." ..."I know it sounds like a lot of money [the permanent bailout fund], but in the context of the eurozone economy, in the context of an economic crisis of this magnitude, these sums are really quite small," he said. "Also, the problem with this is that there are only so many countries that are able to underwrite these bailout funds, these debts." And as more Eurozone countries face economic problems, Tilford says, fewer are left to bail out the others.