White House calls for rapid action in Europe

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou © AFP/File Louisa Gouliamaki

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House said Tuesday that chaos and uncertainty unleashed by Greek’s shock call for a referendum on its debt deal showed the need for rapid implementation of a eurozone finance agreement.

But President Barack Obama’s spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment directly on the wisdom of the decision by Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, which left the Greek government reeling and markets in meltdown.

“The announcement he made, just reinforces the notion that… the Europeans… need to elaborate further and implement rapidly the decisions they made last week.”

“It remains the case that the Europeans have the capacity to deal with this crisis, and they need to implement the very important decisions they made last week to provide a conclusive resolution to it,” Carney said.

The EU deal, agreed last Thursday after marathon talks in Brussels included an agreement to write off 100 billion euros ($137 billion) of debt owed by Greece.

But the Athens government still has to implement a painful package of austerity measures to get its hands on bailout funds.

© AFP — Published at Activist Post with license