The ESM – a permanent replacement for the sticking-plaster European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) – was due to come into existence in July. All of the 17 eurozone countries except Estonia (which accounts for 0.19 per cent of capital requirements, and thus can be ignored) had ratified the treaty needed to put it into effect. Germany's parliament and senate had approved it. All that was left was for the country's president, Joachim Gauck, to sign on the dotted line, for an extensive bailout fund to be created, intended to end uncertainty about the single currency.