Monti: Solve debt crisis or Europe risks breaking up

Italy’s prime minister Mario Monti warned of a potential breakup of Europe without greater urgency in efforts to lower government borrowing costs, as a standoff over ECB help for Italy and Spain hardened.

Mr Monti, in an interview with Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine published on Sunday, said that disagreements within the 17-nation eurozone are detracting from the policy response to the debt crisis and undermining the future of the EU.

“The tensions that have accompanied the eurozone in the past years are already showing signs of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” Mr Monti told Der Spiegel.