London - -EU president Herman Van Rompuy blamed the past strength of the European single currency for making the eurozone unaware of its fiscal problems, in an interview with the Financial Times on Monday.
"What went wrong wasn't what happened this year. What went wrong was what happened in the first 11 years of the euro's history. In some ways we were victims of our success," Van Rompuy told the business daily.
"The euro became a strong currency .. It was like some kind of sleeping pill, some kind of drug. We weren't aware of the underlying problems," he added.
According to the FT, he acknowledged that the markets had played a useful role since the Greek debt crisis erupted last October in identifying weaknesses in eurozone economic governance.
But the paper added that he fully supported tougher financial market regulation, especially for credit rating agencies and derivatives markets - measures EU authorities are drawing up.
- AFP