Asmussen said the eurozone could not prosper if Italy, the bloc's third-largest economy, had "a potential growth rate of zero". "Italy has to grow, and this will not happen by waiting for the cycle to turn. The challenges for Italy are long-term and the solution is structural. We need only look at the trends to see this: its real growth rate was 5% in the 1950s, 4% in the 1960s, 3% in the 1970s, 2% in the 1980s, 1% in the 1990s, and 0% in the 2000s.
"Italy is too big to be rescued from the outside, it has to make the turnaround on its own. Its fate will critically determine the fate of the euro area. In this sense, the future of the euro area will not be decided in Paris or Berlin, or in Frankfurt or Brussels. It will be decided in Rome.
"But because of my personal experiences in this country, I neither worry about the future of this country nor about the future of the euro area. On the contrary: the vivid entrepreneurship in this country, its world-famous creativity, the power of its civil society and citizens, its educational system with institutions such as Bocconi and now maybe the evolution of a new political system are promising."
Full speech
Further reporting © Reuters
© ECB - European Central Bank
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