EU-kommissær Ollie Rehn sier euro-landene må foreta seg noe snart ellers vil unionen gå i oppløsning. Det er dramatiske ord, spesielt med tanke på hvem som sier dem.
Spania opplever nå en kapitalflukt uten lite. Bare i april ble det tatt ut rundt 550 milliarder kroner, og det var før Bankia måtte melde pass.
Spania er nå inne i en nedadgående spiral og farten vil akselerere.
Olli Rehn, the economics commissioner, gave the warning as Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, criticised national leaders for a “lack of action” to help the single currency out of its crisis.
Spain remained at the eye of the financial storm yesterday, amid continuing fears for its banking sector.
Investors in Spanish banks are withdrawing money at a record rate, figures showed yesterday. More than £55 billion was withdrawn and moved out of the country last month.
Yesterday’s figures are for the month before the Spanish banking crisis entered its latest phase with the nationalisation of Bankia, one of the country’s biggest banks.
Even more money is thought to have left the country since then, raising fears that Spain is locked in an unbreakable cycle of market panic.
Euro-obligasjoner omtales som løsningen, men Rehn sier at selv ikke disse vil kunne redde eurosonen. Uansett: Tyskland sier nei.
Mr Rehn yesterday warned that, even if that scheme were ever approved, it would still not be sufficient to save the euro.
The single currency’s members needed “a genuine stability culture and a much upgraded common capacity to contain common contagion,” he said. “This is the case, at least if we want to avoid a disintegration of the eurozone and if we want it to survive.”
Leder av Den europeiske sentralbanken, Mario Draghi, er bitter. Han føler seg sviktet. Banken har øst ut billige lån, men politikerne har ikke fulgt opp.
Mr Draghi yesterday tacitly accused eurozone governments of squandering the opportunity the central bank had offered them.
“Can the ECB fill the vacuum of lack of action by national governments on fiscal growth? The answer is no,” Mr Draghi told the European Parliament. “Can the ECB fill the vacuum of the lack of action by national governments on the structural problem? The answer is no.”
Mr Draghi and Mario Monti, the Italian prime minister, both piled more pressure on Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to stop blocking moves to pool the borrowing of eurozone members.
Mr Monti yesterday warned that Mrs Merkel’s entire economic agenda “risks being undermined because of lack of promptness in setting up the necessary instruments to limit the contagion.”
Euro is facing disintegration, Commission warns
The euro faces ‘disintegration’ unless European governments do much more to work together, the European Commission has warned.
