PARIS (MNI) – The euro is “not in danger” from the current crisis,
but European leaders need to do more to shrink imbalances and
competitive differences within the Eurozone, Jean-Claude Juncker, the
Eurogroup president and Prime Minister of Luxembourg, said in a
television interview Wednesday.
“We should give more importance to narrowing the imbalances and
competitive divergences we do have inside the euro area,” Juncker told
CNBC. The imbalances, he said, are “too large.”
In mulling the appropriate reforms to implement, “we should keep in
mind that we were underestimating the danger resulting from these
divergences,” Juncker said. He noted that in recent years, Eurozone
officials were aware of a significant loss of competitiveness. “We were
discussing this, but we were not taking effective action,” he said.
Now, “we are giving more importance to this macroeconomic debate
that we should have had with more intensity in former years,” he added.
–Paris newsroom, +331-42-71-55-40; paris@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: M$$EC$,M$X$$$,MGX$$$,M$$CR$,MT$$$$]
