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FRANKFURT, Germany — The financial stability of Europe has come down to one institution, the European Central Bank, which is now under heavy new pressure to rescue the euro — or possibly see it collapse.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain’s prime minister, on Thursday became the latest leader to demand that the bank find a solution to the euro crisis, saying that “this is what we transferred power for” and that it had to be a bank “that defends the common policy and its countries.” Zapatero made his unusually blunt statements on a day when markets sagged further and contagion continued its seemingly inexorable spread from the small economies on Europe’s periphery to Italy, Spain and even France at the core.
