Schaeuble: euro states must give EU more power - The Best from Greece

Eurozone states must do more at a European level and pass some of their responsibilities for budget setting and fiscal policy to European institutions to find a way out of the debt crisis, Germany's Finance Minister was quoted on Saturday as saying.

 

Wolfgang Schaeuble told Germany weekly news magazine Focus that Italy would be able to overcome its problems, which stemmed from a confidence crisis on the markets.

 

"The actual economic data is not so bad. The problems just need to be tackled... These are also solvable by Italy itself. What Rome must overcome is nothing like the mountain Greece must climb," he said in an interview published on Saturday.

 

Although Europe now had a more stringent growth and stability pact which allows the chance to intervene much earlier, countries also had to do more at European Union level, he said.

 

"The pressure of the crisis is allowing things to happen which otherwise wouldn't be possible... the bigger the crisis the greater the need for change."

 

"The sense that this will bring us much further in the end helps me through the frustrating times." (Reuters)