German minister “certain” summit has solved crisis

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said agreements reached at an EU summit this week will solve the euro zone’s debt crisis and that Germany needs a strong Europe.
“I am certain that we will be able to handle the debt crisis in Europe with the agreed, far-reaching measures on institutional reform of the European currency union,” Schaeuble wrote in a guest contribution for Focus magazine.
European leaders agreed on Friday to draft a new treaty for deeper economic integration in the euro zone, although Britain, the region’s third largest economy, refused to join the 17 euro states and nine other EU countries in a fiscal union.

Schaeuble said Europe had always emerged more strongly from crises and that was important for Germany, the bloc’s biggest economy.

“If we act as individual nation states we can at best delay our loss of significance, but we would not be able to prevent it,” he wrote.

Schaeuble also reiterated that the euro was a worthy successor to Germany’s former mark currency and had delivered more price stability over its 12-year history than the mark.

REUTERS