Euro-zone debt crisis to be under control next year: Germany

FRANKFURT: The 17-nation euro-zone will get its long-running debt crisis under control next year, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in a newspaper interview published on Friday.

"Within the next 12 months, we'll have stemmed the contagion risks and stabilised the euro-zone. All euro countries will have made progress in overcoming their respective problems," Schaeuble told the business daily Handelsblatt.

He ruled out a break-up of the single currency area, insisting;"A common currency welds together countries' fates. That's why policymakers are doing everything to prevent disintegration."

The minister reiterated his call for the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) a permanent bail-out facility for euro members to be put in place as soon as possible.

At a summit in Brussels earlier this month, EU leaders agreed on bringing the ESM into force in July 2012, earlier than first mooted, with a lending capacity of 500 billion euros.

"That would send the strongest signal that eurozone countries back the single currency," Schaeuble said.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011