Harper cautiously optimistic over tentative euro debt deal
Posted October 27, 2011 5:44 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expressing “cautious optimism” at the tentative package worked out by European leaders to tackle the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis.
In a speech to a Commonwealth business forum in Perth, Australia, Harper said he sees positive steps from the eurozone, although he cautioned the situation is still evolving.
Harper says progress has genuinely been made.
European leaders agreed late Wednesday to boost a bailout fund to a trillion euros while private creditors agreed to accept 50 cents on the dollar on Greek bonds that helped spark the current crisis.
Harper, speaking early Thursday shortly after arriving in Australia for a Commonwealth summit, prefaced his comments by saying the world has been “awaiting something big in terms of scale and in terms of sacrifice” from Europe.
Harper said only a big move would assure skittish markets that the problems are being tackled and — in the prime minister’s words — “the pain is being accepted.”
He called the European debt crisis the most immediate and imminent threat to the global economic recovery.
Harper has been an outspoken critic of Europe’s collective failure to act decisively to stem the economic hemmoraging there.
The Commonwealth summit immediately precedes a crisis-atmosphere G20 leaders meeting scheduled for next week in France.
Amid the threat of a second global recession, the 54-country Commonwealth is facing its own crisis of relevancy.
Leaders will use the three-day summit to debate demands for tougher, more enforceable rules regarding human rights, the rule of law and political freedoms among the Commonwealth countries.
Sixteen Commonwealth realms that have the Queen as head of state will also agree here to rewrite the rules of royal succession to eliminate gender discrimination for future heirs to the throne.
Following his speech to the Commonwealth business forum, Harper will sit down for a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard today.
The main leaders’ summit gets underway Friday morning and concludes Sunday.
