EU sees need to escalate crisis response: Geithner

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner
© AFP/File Nicholas Kamm

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that Europe has recognized the need to step up its response to the eurozone debt crisis.

“I think this weekend, what you heard is, they heard from everybody around the world,” Geithner told ABC News, on Monday.

“They recognized the need to escalate. They’re going to have to put a much more powerful financial framework behind this,” he said.

“I really believe that you’re going to see them do that, but we wanted to make sure they do it as quickly as they can and as definitively as they can,” he added.

Geithner was speaking after European finance leaders endured a heavy wave of censure from colleagues from around the world at the World Bank, IMF and G20 meetings in Washington last Thursday through Saturday.

Many, including the heads of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, said the eurozone countries were moving too slowly, and without crucial unity, to prevent the Greek debt crisis from spilling over to infect other countries and damage the banking system.

Geithner told ABC that it will take “years and years and years” for the 17 nation eurozone to implement needed reforms and “dig their way out.”

“But those reforms won’t work unless they’re reinforced and backed by a credible financial commitment,” he said.

Geithner said the US had set an example with its “extraordinary” response to the 2008-2009 crisis.
“We demonstrated… that if you do it quickly and forcefully, it’s much less expensive and you get growth moving much more quickly than you would have thought.

“And we’d like to see them take those basic lessons and move more quickly now.”