Bulgaria's Djankov Renews Criticism at European Central Bank

Bulgaria in EU | June 22, 2012, Friday // 14:22|  views

"The crisis in the euro zone has been grinding on for five years already and it shows that radical decisions are a must when it comes to countries in need of a bailout or the structure of EU institutions," Simeon Djankov said. File photo

Bulgaria's Finance Minister Simeon Djankov has called for radical changes in the European Central Bank as EU officials meet in Luxembourg to discuss a bailout for Spanish banks and the way ahead for Greece's emergency lending program.

"The crisis in the euro zone has been grinding on for five years already and it shows that radical decisions are a must when it comes to countries in need of a bailout or the structure of EU institutions," Djankov said.

He pointed out that the meeting of EU finance ministers, which comes ahead of a EU leaders meeting, is dominated by talk about bringing changes in the structure of the European Central Bank and the way it works.

"The mood in Luxembourg is quite low even though we all are happy with the positive outcome of the elections in Greece. But problems remain unsolved."

"There is a lot of work to be done. They warned us we are going to work all the time and should not even buy return tickets because we will work until we come up with concrete solutions for the euro zone and in particular Greece, Cyprus and Spain," Djankov said.

This is not the first time that Djankov, a former senior World Bank expert, voices criticism at key EU bodies.

"Once you design a new currency you need the institutions to go with it and the recent troubles showed we don't have the institutions. Nobody is daring to ask what happened to the current institutions," he told BBC World Service's Business Daily at the end of 2010.

He also slammed Eurostat, the EU statistics office, for failing to raise alarm over the state finances of struggling euro zone members.

"Didn't they know about Greece's problems, the Irish problems? They seem to not have bothered doing as much analysis as they should. The institutions themselves need some health checks and then some changes," he declared in a rather categorical manner.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!


Tags: budget deficit, European Central Bank, eurostat, ECB, European Commmission, EC, bailout loan, ireland, greece, financial crisis, BBC, Euro Area, euro zone, finance minister, Simeon Djankov, Bulgaria

Back  

» Related Articles:

Search

Search