US PRESIDENT Barack Obama has said that the continuing Eurozone debt crisis is “scaring the world” – and believes that European leaders are not doing enough to resolve the crisis.
Obama told a crowd in Silicon Valley that the European crisis was being made more grave by the fact that Europe had not fully healed from the original onset of the financial crisis in 2007, “and never fully dealt with all the challenges that their banking system faced”.
“So they’re going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world and they are trying to take responsible actions, but those actions haven’t been quite as quick as they need to be,” Obama said.
The president added that global economies were not growing “as fast as they need to.”
The slow growth of overseas economies, and uncertainty over energy prices as a result of the Arab Spring, have been two of the main reasons why the US economy had been slow to overcome the global crisis.
Obama’s comments are the latest sign of impatience within the US administration about the stuttering European recovery – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner last week acknowledged that the US needed to help come up with a “more effective strategy”.
The ongoing European concerns will likely continue, however, at least until Greece is given a conclusive word on whether it has secured the next batch of its bailout loans.
Without those loans, Greece will run out of cash and be forced into default – a move which will almost certainly have massive ramifications for the rest of the Eurozone.
European stock futures are all in positive territory this morning after a good day worldwide; yesterday the Dow Jones closed up by 2.5 per cent while the S&P 500 trailed narrowly behind on 2.3 per cent.
This morning Asia’s most prominent stock markets are also up by around 3 per cent.
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