Nouriel Roubini predicts break-up of Eurozone unless economic growth is restored

 1. Wide of Nouriel Roubini, New York University Economics Professor, speaking at German union conference
2. Mid of Roubini speaking at podium
3. Mid of audience listening
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Nouriel Roubini, US economist:
"On the US I would say compared to Europe or the UK or Japan that are stagnating or in recession, in relative terms the US is growing but there are economic difficulties, there are social difficulties, there are fiscal and financial difficulties in the United States."
5. Mid of audience listening
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Nouriel Roubini, US economist:
"So what I fear today about the Eurozone is that they don't put job creation and demand and GDP growth in the centre of the policy debate. Is more austerity in the periphery, is more austerity in the core. If I had to propose policies that change that historic road I would say we have to postpone the fiscal austerity in the periphery and do it more gradual, slower rather than faster. In countries like Germany where there is fiscal space instead of doing fiscal austerity now you have to postpone it and you have to do fiscal stimulus."
7. Mid of Roubini speaking
8. Mid of audience listening
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Nouriel Roubini, US economist:
"That fiscal austerity until last year was only in the periphery of the Eurozone but now that the Eurozone has agreed about the fiscal compact you're going to start to see fiscal austerity in Austria, in Germany, in Belgium, in Netherlands, in Finland. So having synchronised austerity both in the core and the periphery, (it) is going to imply weaker economic growth."
10. Mid of a photographer
11. Mid of Roubini speaking
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Nouriel Roubini, US economist:
"And unless we restore that economic growth eventually this crisis is going to get worse and we will have a break up of the Eurozone. And unfortunately those who are resisting the most, those stimulative policies come in the core of the Eurozone and come in the government of Germany - this resisting policy that would try to restore job creation and job growth in the periphery of Eurozone. So unless we do that eventually the crisis could get worse rather than get better."
13. Wide of Roubini speaking
14. Close of Roubini speaking

STORYLINE:
American economist Nouriel Roubini said on Wednesday that the Eurozone will break up unless the member states restore economic growth.
The New York University professor was speaking at a conference organised by IG Metall, Germany's biggest trade union, in Berlin.
He said that the Eurozone was not paying enough attention to job creation and GDP growth, because it was too focused on austerity.
"If I had to propose policies that change that historic road I would say we have to postpone the fiscal austerity in the periphery and do it more gradual, slower rather than faster. In countries like Germany where there is fiscal space instead of doing fiscal austerity now you have to postpone it and you have to do fiscal stimulus," he said.
Roubini went onto say that the fiscal compact will lead to weaker economic growth and deepen recession in the Euro area in 2013.
"And unless we restore that economic growth eventually this crisis is going to get worse and we will have a break up of the Eurozone," he said, "and unfortunately those who are resisting the most, those stimulative policies come in the core of the Eurozone and come in the government of Germany - this resisting policy that would try to restore job creation and job growth in the periphery of Eurozone. So unless we do that eventually the crisis could get worse rather than get better."




You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork





 Nouriel Roubini is an American professor of Economics at New York University`s Stern School of Business and chairman of RGE Roubini Global Economics