Osborne tells EU ministers to back euro

Chancellor George Osborne has asked EU finance ministers to show the world they are prepared to stand behind their currency.Speaking at the Ecofin meeting in Brussels, he said that they needed to build a convincing "firewall" to prevent the crisis spreading.Sky News reported that Osborne urged leaders to make real progress on implementing measures to prevent the debt crisis in the eurozone worsening."The eurozone now needs to convincingly show the world that the firewall exists and has got sufficient resources in it," he told reporters.He added, "We cant just stand and wait on developments in Athens and in Rome, we have also got to make progress here in Brussels."If we dont, that will continue to have a very damaging effect on the entire European economy, including the British economy."Finance ministers have turned their main focus from Greece to Italy, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has won a crucial budget vote, but without the support of a majority of MPs.The result, which was unexpected, has added pressure on the 75-year-old to stand down.Fears are growing that a worsening Italian crisis could end up dwarfing the problems faced by Greece.Italy is one of the eurozones biggest economies and its losses would be impossible to support without a bailout fund well beyond the trillion euros the eurozone states are trying to piece together.But despite woes over Italy, Greece still remained under the spotlight.Osborne warned that failure to build on last months deal to bail out the stricken Greek economy would have a "very damaging effect" on Britain.But like Italy, Greece is undergoing change on the political front, and Eurozone chairman Jean-Claude Juncker has warned that an agreed extra eight billion euros due to be paid to Greece could not be handed over until a new Greek government was fully installed.
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