German Finance Minister sees crisis in check within a year

BERLIN: German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said he expects the euro zone will be stabilised within 12 months and ruled out a break-up of the single currency in an interview published on Friday.

"I believe that in the next 12 months we will be so far that we will have the risk of contagion under control and will have stabilised the euro zone," Schaeuble told Handelsblatt newspaper in an interview.

Asked whether he could rule out a break-up of the currency bloc that has been rattled by a sovereign debt crisis for more than two years, Schaeuble said: "With everything I know at the moment: yes."