France and Germany are creating "turbulence" in Europe with their directive policy-making, former European Commission president Romano Prodi told a Greek newspaper in an interview Sunday.
"My worry is that the Franco-German duo is not enough in a European Union of 27 countries and a eurozone of 17 nations and so this duo cannot take decisions which it then seeks to impose on others, especially since there is so much disagreement betwen the two," said Prodi. "Since there are huge problems of debt in certain countries, this can create turbulence," he told To Vima. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have been instrumental in negotiating bailouts and emergency solutions for the eurozone at several crisis summits but their bullish approach to saving the euro has met with criticism from other European nations who see themselves excluded from discussions.
Prodi, who presided over the EU's executive Commission from 1999 to 2004 after two years as Italian prime minister in 1996-1998, also told To Vima that he saw eurobonds as a possible solution to the ever-widening debt crisis.
"Eurobonds are a viable solution, fair and clear, I'm not saying that it is the only solution but we are facing a real political problem and if there is no political will, we cannot find a viable solution," he said.
If Europe's main banks released eurobonds, two trillion euros could be freed up for strengthening the euro currency and a further trillion used to build a reliable investment structure in Europe, Prodi said.