Merkel warns of stalling on market reform

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday said she would not accept resistance to financial market reform, one day after her finance minister accused Britain of impeding an international overhaul.

"We observe ... there is some resistance to pushing through further regulation at the very moment when banks are sensing some improvement in the situation," Merkel told the Bundestag lower house of parliament, without naming any countries.

"We will insist that we get a new set of rules for the financial markets so that such a crisis is never repeated," she said in a speech addressing next week's summit of leaders from the Group of Eight industrial powers in L'Aquila, Italy.

On Wednesday, German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said Britain was hindering efforts to reform global financial markets because it was too eager to pander to the City of London.

"The interests of the City of London are practically implemented, practically aligned with the policy interests of the British government," he said in Berlin.

Steinbrueck said the U.S. government was now interested in financial market reform but that London was resisting change.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers and Dave Graham, editing by Mike Peacock)