Europe Boosts Firewall to Protect Spain, Italy - by James G. Neuger and Jonathan Stearns

European governments moved to bolster their rescue funds, seeking to shield Spain and Italy from the fallout of the debt crisis without alienating bailout- weary voters in wealthy countries. 

Finance ministers neared an agreement to run the temporary and permanent funds in parallel until mid-2013, potentially raising the upper limit on emergency lending to 940 billion euros ($1.3 trillion). Amounts immediately available would range between 340 billion euros and 640 billion euros.

“I can imagine that both instruments run in parallel so that automatically we have a higher sum overall,” Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter told reporters before a meeting of European finance ministers in Copenhagen today.

For more: Europe Boosts Firewall to Protect Spain, Italy - Businessweek