Debt crisis rattles eurozone political landscape
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Xinhua, November 21, 2011
EU leaders had earlier proposed to leverage the 440-billion-euro EFSF to some one trillion euros by setting up co-investment funds or providing insurance against initial losses. However, detailed terms of the plan is still under work.
The G20 summit in Cannes, France, was hoped by many to lure potential investors for the EFSF, but garnered only verbal support.
And above all, the eurozone has not yet convinced markets that it could draw a line under the debt crisis soon, to restore investors' confidence in the euro, and head off a contagion fear that plagued the single currency area.
Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel, warning of a thorny way ahead, said earlier this month that it could take ten years before the eurozone was in a better shape.
"(It will) certainly take a decade until we are in a better position again," Merkel said in her weekly podcast on Nov. 5, "We have a whole chunk of work ahead of us, I've got to say."
The silver lining here, however, maybe that the crisis might actually push forward the EU's integration and financial discipline, according to Chen Xin, director of the CASS Institute of European Studies.
"Every time the European economy is in serious trouble, its integration gets to be further strengthened," Chen said.
Addressing around 1,000 delegates of her ruling conservatives at a party conference on Monday, Merkel also called for closer European political union.
"Europe is in one of its toughest, perhaps the toughest hour since World War Two," she said, adding that the crisis, however, could offer a chance to make it stronger.
