Delors Says Euro Doomed to Debt Crisis, Daily Telegraph Reports

By Erik Larson - Dec 3, 2011 8:21 PM GMT+0700

Jacques Delors, the former European Commission president who played a central role in creating the euro in 1999, told the Daily Telegraph that politicians’ errors at the time “doomed” the currency to the current debt crisis.

Delors, who led the commission from 1985 to 1995, said leaders ignored the “fundamental weaknesses and imbalances” of the member countries’ economies and failed to create strong central powers for the group, the newspaper reported today.

All European countries must now share the blame for the crisis, which was triggered by excessive borrowing by Greece, Italy and other countries that took the euro region to the “brink of disaster,” Delors told the Daily Telegraph.

Delors blamed part of the crisis on Germany’s strict demand that the European Central Bank shouldn’t support highly indebted euro users over inflation fears, the Daily Telegraph said. Delors also blamed the “stubbornness of the Germanic idea of monetary control” and the lack of a shared vision among the member countries, according to the report.

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in London at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net