BRUSSELS — The European Union faces potential disaster if its leaders don’t cooperate and find a way to keep interest rates on Italy’s national debt down, Italian Premier Mario Monti warned Wednesday.
Monti’s remarks included a thinly veiled jab at German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a day that Italy’s borrowing costs hit year highs in reaction to Merkel reportedly saying she wouldn’t let European governments share debt obligations — which would bring relief to Italy — “as long as I live.”
The Italian premier was in Brussels for a meeting of European leaders focused on the continent’s raging debt crisis. He said Italians have made great sacrifices and gotten their country’s deficit under control. But yields on Italian government bonds keep rising anyway.
If Italians become discouraged that their efforts aren’t helping, it could unleash “political forces which say, ‘Let European integration, let the euro, let this or that large country go to hell,’ which would be a disaster for the whole of the European Union,” Monti said.
Germany is Europe’s biggest and strongest economy, but Monti noted that Germany and France violated the eurozone’s 3 percent deficit limit in 2003.
Monti’s mention of “political forces” is a reference to his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi, who has recently begun saying he doesn’t understand why Italy doesn’t just ditch the euro.
