Lacking solidarity, eurozone could fall apart: Poland
Jacek Rostowski - Photo EU Council
(WARSAW) - European elites must decide whether they want to co-operate and pay a high price for the eurozone's survival or to prepare seriously for its "controlled dissolution", a senior Polish minister said.
"European elites, including the Germans, must decide whether they want the eurozone to survive -- even at a high price -- or not," Poland's finance minister Jacek Rostowski said in an interview published Monday in Poland's leading Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
"If not, then there should be serious preparation for the controlled dissolution of the zone, with all of the consequences this entails for Germany," Rostowski said. "This is the logic of the current situation. Those who don't understand it are playing with fire."
Ex-communist Poland which joined the European Union in 2004 and currently holds the 27-member bloc's rotating presidency has postponed joining the eurozone in light of its ongoing debt crisis.
Warsaw has however said it will meet the Maastricht Treaty macroeconomic criteria for eurozone entry by 2015.
"This is the choice: a great deal more macroeconomic integration in the eurozone or its disintegration. There is no third way," Rostowski added.
The British-born economist also warned of "two types of dangerous populism" in Europe.
"The first is southern populism -- irrational economics which denies taking responsibility for its own problems. Here I'm referring to participants in anti-austerity demonstrations, for example in Greece," the minister observed.
"The second populism -- in some northern countries -- is based on selfishness and a lack of solidarity with countries in trouble," he added.
"It's a simple choice: either solidarity or the disintegration of Europe," Rostowski warned.
Under its 2004 EU entry deal, Poland is obliged to join the eurozone, now grouping 17 EU states, but Rostowski said Monday Warsaw would enter only when it could be certain the bloc has implemented the reforms necessary to overcome the debt crisis.
"To enter the eurozone, we must be certain that reforms go deep enough," he said.