EU can be torn apart by eurozone debt crisis

PanARMENIAN.Net - EU leaders issued dire warnings on Wednesday, September 14, that the 60-year-old European Union could be torn apart by the eurozone debt crisis, as the risk of Greece defaulting grows.

Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said that the bloc which now counts 27 member states could be destroyed by the debt crisis dragging down the currency area.

"Europe is in danger," Rostowski told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. "If the eurozone breaks up, the European Union will not be able to survive, with all the consequences that one can imagine."

European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso agreed with the Polish minister. "We are facing the biggest crisis of this generation. It's a struggle for the political future of Europe, for European integration as a whole," Barroso told the parliament.

Rostowski said the "current crisis, if it continues in such an unpredictable way, will have major repercussions. "If it lasts for a year or two, we must be ready for unemployment levels that could be doubled in some countries, including the richest ones."

Barroso again pressed eurozone governments to ratify a second Greek bailout worth 160 billion euros ($217 billion) agreed in July, but snarled up with problems in Finland, Slovakia and the Netherlands at least.

The commission leader exhorted Greece to implement even wider economic reforms, and the EU to end long-running negotiations between member states and the European Parliament on tightened cross-border economic governance.

Barroso said the solution was to have "more Europe, not less Europe," but said there were increasing signs that France and Germany were "re-nationalising" eurozone decision-making.

Again on Wednesday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were to hold talks with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, AFP reported.