Former Italy PM agrees Europe needs grand bargain

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

BRUSSELS, Belgium:
Romano Prodi, a former president of the European Commission, agrees with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair that European leaders must strike a "grand bargain" in order to solve the Euro crisis.

"Because the problem is big we need a grand bargain," Prodi, a former Prime Minister of Italy, told Jamaican journalists today.

European leaders are meeting in a summit in Brussels today with a view to resolving the Euro crisis.

The summit is taking place over two days and is being held at a time when five European countries, including Spain, which has significant investments in Jamaica's tourism sector, has asked the euro zone for a bail out.

Prodi said it is important that a solution be found quickly or else speculation about the financial health of some countries could spell problems.

"My experience in this area is that all the summits have taken correct decisions in the right direction but never sufficient to decrease the speculation and so the rate of interest is always increasing. And so step by step the situation is worse," Prodi said.

He added: "I don't know what will be decided today but we must arrive today, or in one of the next meetings to a point where the decision is so strong that we reverse the expectations otherwise there will be no remedy to the European situation."

At a meeting in Paris Wednesday, the German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande agreed on the need for a €130-billion compact for growth, but Berlin is continuing to resist the introduction of some form of Eurobonds.

That, however, is one area in which Prodi wants to see compromise.

"Without euro bonds, without the extra power of the European Central Bank we cannot solve this problem. It is completely foolish to think you can be half way," Prodi said.

The former commission boss said today there will be a step in the positive decision.

"It will not be a final solution but I do hope that the message is ‘look be confident because a grand bargain will be found’."

In the meantime, as senior journalist Cliff Hughes introduced the group as being from Jamaica, Prodi acknowledged the country as the land of the speedsters.

"You run very fast," the former president of the European Commission said.

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