Title:
Greece's Debt Crisis and the Future of Europe
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
Finance ministers from the euro area met in Poland
in the middle of September to discuss the Greek debt
crisis. American Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
joined them. Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist at the
European Policy Center in Brussels, said the United
States was right to get involved. "The intervention
from the US has also shown at least a risk that the
stability of the financial system as a whole -- the
global financial system -- might be under threat
again." Earlier, the leaders of France, Germany and
Greece held a conference call to discuss how to
contain Europe's deepening financial crisis. Germany
and France are Europe's two largest economies.
Seventeen European Union countries use the euro as
their currency. On September fifteenth, five major
central banks agreed to lend additional dollars to
European banks in the euro zone. The European
Central Bank says the three-month loans will provide
as many dollars as the banks need. The operations
will end in December. The European Central Bank is
acting with the United States Federal Reserve, the
Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss
National Bank. The announcement helped lift European
bank shares and major European stock lists.The
Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development has lowered its growth estimates for
the euro area. In Greece the economy has shrunk this
year. German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged eurozone
nations to do everything possible to avoid an
"uncontrolled insolvency" by Greece. On September
thirteenth, she warned that problems would quickly
spread if Greece failed to pay its international
rescue loans. And, she said, "If the euro fails,
Europe fails."The next day, European Commission
President Jose Manuel Barroso spoke to the European
Parliament. He announced that the commission would
propose creating "eurobonds." The idea is for euro
zone governments to jointly guarantee their debts.
Germany and France have opposed such bonds. Mr.
Barroso also said the current system that lets
individual countries easily block policy is not
working. "I am convinced we need a deeper and more
results-driven integration. ... A system based
purely on intergovernment cooperation has not worked
in the past and will not work in the future." For
VOA Special English, I'm Alex Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
