Debt crisis threatens to break up Europe

Tensions within the eurozone over how to resolve the debt crisis are turning countries against each other and threatening to rip Europe apart, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has warned.

Tensions within the eurozone over how to resolve the debt crisis are turning countries against each other, according to Mario Monti

Tensions within the eurozone over how to resolve the debt crisis are turning countries against each other and threatening to rip Europe apart, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti has warned.

Resentment in Italy is growing against Germany, the European Union and even German chancellor Angela Merkel herself, he said, adding that “the pressures already bear the traits of a psychological break-up of Europe”.

Mr Monti told German news magazine Der Spiegel that he was “concerned” about the deepening divisions and said governments “must work hard to contain it”.

His words were released as Greece pledged further economic reforms to avert bankruptcy at a meeting with the bail-out “troika” of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

After Sunday’s meeting, the troika said: “There was an overall agreement on the need to strengthen policy efforts.”

Last week, Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras secured cross-party support for a further €11.5bn (£9.11bn) of cuts in 2013 and 2014 to keep the €130bn of international rescue funds flowing. The details must be agreed by early September if Greece is to receive its next bail-out tranche. 

The divisions within Europe were laid out in the weekend’s German press, where German regional finance minister, Markus Soeder, said that aid to Greece should be stopped. “When a country like Greece on a continuing basis cannot pay back debts, it must leave the eurozone,” he said. “Greece should quit by the end of the year.”