Obama urges EU to resolve crisis

Dec 8, 2011, 17:30 GMT

Washington - US President Barack Obama said Thursday that Europe must act to resolve its debt crisis as European Union leaders prepared to gather in Brussels for a key summit on the future of the eurozone.

'We're going to do everything we can to push them in a good direction on this, because it has a huge impact on what happens here in the United States,' said Obama, who has been in frequent contact with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Obama said he believed European leaders recognized the 'importance of doing something serious and bold. The question is whether they can muster the political will to get it done.'

His comments came just before the start of a critical summit of EU leaders in Brussels to discuss possible treaty changes to instil greater budget discipline among the members of the bloc's single currency.

'Look, Europe is wealthy enough that there's no reason why they can't solve this problem,' Obama said. 'It's not as if we're talking about some impoverished country that doesn't have any resources.'

'If they muster the political will, they have the capacity to settle markets down, make sure that they are acting responsibly and that governments like Italy are able to finance their debt,' he said.

He praised Merkel for making progress with other leaders toward common fiscal rules, but said the short-term crisis also needs to be resolved.

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