Commission: Catastrophe if Greece quits euro

The European Commission warned of “catastrophe” if Greece has to abandon the euro and its chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, urged EU governments to show solidarity as Athens struggles to secure more credit.

A day after German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Greece might stumble out of the eurozone because new, left-wing leaders failed to negotiate new borrowings, Juncker’s economics commissioner said EU hardliners underestimated the risk that this would start a fatal domino collapse of the common currency.

“All of us in Europe probably agree that a Greek exit would be a catastrophe — for the Greek economy, but also for the euro zone as a whole,” Pierre Moscovici told Der Spiegel — a view not in fact shared by some conservative allies of Chancellor Angela Merkel who favour amputating the bloc’s troubled Greek limb.