Leaders seek solutions to eurozone debt crisis at Davos
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Xinhua, January 30, 2012
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Pascal Lamy, Director-General of World Trade Organization (WTO), attends a session "After Doha: The Future of Global Trade" at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum at the congress centre in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 28, 2012. [Xinhua] |
![Pascal Lamy, Director-General of World Trade Organization (WTO), attends a session 'After Doha: The Future of Global Trade' at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum at the congress centre in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 28, 2012. [Xinhua]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20120130/001aa0ba5c8510903f4e0e.jpg "Pascal Lamy, Director-General of World Trade Organization (WTO), attends a session 'After Doha: The Future of Global Trade' at the Annual Meeting 2012 of the World Economic Forum at the congress centre in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 28, 2012. [Xinhua]")
The Davos Annual Meeting draws conclusion on Monday, with eurozone debt crisis being the focal point throughout the five-day process and leaders not only from Europe but all across the world striving to seek solutions to the issue.
Merkel's manifestation
Not unexpectedly, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of eurozone's backbone country, took the advantage of Davos, to restate her firm commitment to resolve the pressing debt issue.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Annual Meeting which gathered some 2600 participants from over 100 countries, Merkel stressed that Europe needs restructuring and jobs creation as concrete approaches towards economic recovery and sustainability.
"Do we dare more Europe?" she asked. From her point of view, although some regulations have been put in place to regulate the systematically important big banks from further destabilized the financial system, there are still many issues left to be tackled, such as tightening budget discipline and making sure financial stability.
The public debt problem facing many European countries, Merkel said, can not be cured by waving magic wand.
The German Chancellor went on to say that Europe's economic future, in the long run, relies on jobs creation, in particular for the younger generation, and reforms and deregulation in labor market. She said the issue of job creation will be in focus at the EU Brussels Summit due on Jan. 30.
She also calls a restructuring of the EU political system, which she said clearly lack of political strength that makes this system work.
Anglo-German duel
Unlike most of the continental EU members, who have time and again committed themselves to defend the European single currency, Merkel's counterpart, British Prime Minister David Cameron did not seem to be optimistic with the outlook.
Speaking at a session on the second day of the Annual Meeting, Cameron responded to Merkel's speech with certain doubt over whether the eurozone has all the institutional elements needed to support the euro.
He also refused to support the Financial Transactions Tax, which he said could cost the EU 200 billion euros in GDP and could take out almost 500,000 jobs.
Despite the British and Germany leadership does not share the same view over which route to lead Europe out of the crisis, they are indeed on the same boat sailing towards the same destination - helping the EU to get back on its feet through regaining competitiveness.
To that end, Cameron said, the EU must take bold actions to get rid of regulatory burdens.
"Europe's lack of competitiveness is its Achilles heel," Cameron said, given that "Lisbon strategy has failed to deliver the structural reforms that we need."
To fix that, the British Prime Minister said the EU needs to take actions which includes putting all proposed EU measures under test on their impact on growth before put them in use, setting a target to reduce the overall burden of EU regulation, introducing a new proportionality test, to prevent needless barriers to trade and services and slashing the number of regulated professions in Europe.
