HELSINKI (MNI) – The euro will survive the current crisis without
any country leaving the monetary union, European Central Bank Governor
Erkki Liikanen said early Tuesday in a television interview.
“The euro will survive. It is not questioned,” Liikanen told
Finland’s YLE TV1. He added that in his view it was “impossible” that
EMU could split apart.
But Liikanen, who heads the Bank of Finland, conceded that “nobody
can guarantee” the current crisis won’t spread to other countries in the
Eurozone. “The Irish question has to be solved now,” he said.
In a second interview on Finland’s MTV3, Liikanen sounded more
urgent, saying that the possible spread of problems from country to
country, given the high degree of economic inter-connection, was “a big
threat.”
Liikanen touched on the economy and on current financial market
conditions in the second interview. Asked about the trajectory of
official ECB interest rates, he said the Governing Council never
comments on monetary policy in advance, and he reiterated that the
central bank’s primary objective was long-term price stability.
“I can say that at this moment there is no significant upside
pressure on price stability,” Liikanen said.
He also noted the recent increase in the Euribor rate, saying it
was a sign that markets were normalizing and functioning properly.
[TOPICS: M$$EC$,M$X$$$,MT$$$$,MGX$$$,M$$CR$]