Crucially, creditor countries in the Eurozone have insisted that the EFSF is not allowed to loan money to Euro member states for the purposes or repurchasing bonds in the open market.

For instance, Greece could repurchase its own bonds at yields of 20-something percent when they issued them at yields below 5%, realising major gains.

This the Aust(e)rians interpret as an EFSF subsidy, fiscal transfer and market manipulation, so they disallow it.

They also want to prevent the EFSF from buying sovereign bonds in the secondary market (since they failed to close that loophole in the Lisbon Treaty charter of the ECB).

The wrangling over the interest rate being charged by the EFSF to Greece, Ireland and Portugal is related to this.

Economics is politics by other means