Monti Urges ‘Deep, Quick’ Moves by Germany to Quell Euro

Italian Prime MinisterMario Monti called on Germany to “reflect deeply but quickly” on steps to stabilize the European economy such as enabling direct euro-area recapitalizations of troubled banks or setting up a European- finance bank backstop system.

“Countries that are at the core of the system and which have had the huge merit of instilling the culture of stability to the EU in the first place, most notably Germany, should really reflect deeply but quickly on these aspects,” Monti said by video link to an EU conference in Brussels today. “Europe should really accelerate the efforts, as the European Commission is doing, in order to limit the contagion.”

Monti blamed Italy’s rising borrowing costs on Europe’s failure to quell the crisis and warned of a backlash in Italy against his budget-cutting policies.

“We are achieving the consequence that month after month the uninformed as well as the highly informed public opinion in this country are turning against the European recommendations for discipline and structural reforms,” Monti said.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James G. Neuger at jneuger@bloomberg.net