ECB’s Stark: Debt Crisis to Serve As Wake-Up Call in Europe

FRANKFURT (MNI) – Tensions in Europe’s sovereign debt market can be
seen as a market test and should serve as a wake-up call for
politicians, European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark
said Friday.

Fiscal rules and economic coordination policies, along with
surveillance of those same policies, need to be strengthened, Stark said
in a panel discussion here.

“The central banks of the Eurosystem have lived up to their
responsibilities since the monetary union was launched,” Stark said.
“But this is not the case for governments.”

“Lessons have to be learned from the current experience,” Stark
said. “As the ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said, this is the time
for a quantum leap in economic governance to improve and enhance
economic governance in Europe, and this is exactly what is at stake
now.”

–Frankfurt newsroom +49 69 720 142; e-mail: frankfurt@marketnews.com —

[TOPICS: MT$$$$,M$X$$$,M$G$$$,MGX$$$,M$$CR$,M$$EC$]