By LIZ ALDERMAN
Published: November 28, 2011
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said the euro crisis remained “a key risk to the world economy.” The Paris-based research group sharply cut its forecasts for wealthy Western countries and warned that growth in Europe could come to a standstill.Europe’s politicians have so far moved too slowly to prevent the crisis from spreading, the organization said in a report . It warned that the problems that started in Greece almost two years ago would start to infect even rich European countries thought to have relatively solid public finances, a development that would “massively escalate economic disruption.”
“We are concerned that policy-makers fail to see the urgency of taking decisive action to tackle the real and growing risks to the global economy,” the O.E.C.D.’s chief economist Pier Carlo Padoan said.
The warning came just hours after Moody's Investor Service issued its own bleak report on Europe’s rapidly escalating sovereign debt crisis.
The credit agency warning that the problems may lead multiple countries to default on their debts or exit the euro, which would threaten the credit standing of all 17 countries in the currency union.
It also said that while European politicians have expressed their commitment to holding the euro together and preventing defaults, their actions to address the crisis only seem to be taking place “after a series of shocks” force their hand. As a result, more countries may be shut out of borrowing in financial markets “for a sustained period,” Moody’s said, raising the specter of additional public bailouts on top of the multi-billion euro lifelines currently supporting Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
“The probability of multiple defaults by euro-area countries is no longer negligible,” Moody’s said. “A series of defaults would also increase the likelihood of one or more members not simply defaulting, but also leaving the euro area.”
Despite the gloomy predictions, stocks rose sharply in Europe and Asia for the first time in more than a week, and the euro strengthened, on hopes that European leaders were working on a new approach to resolve the crisis.
On Sunday, France, Germany and Italy signaled they were ready to agree on new rules to enforce budget discipline among the 17 nations that use the euro, and encourage more coordination of economic and fiscal policy.
Those efforts have so far been overshadowed by the failure of those countries to follow through on promises made back in July to bolster mechanisms to fight the euro crisis.
In particular, authorities have been slow to implement an expansion of the bailout fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility, that was meant to raise money by issuing bonds backed by the stronger European countries and loan it to shakier countries facing high interest rates on their debt.
France last week bowed to pressure from Germany against the issuance of a common bond that would be backed by euro-zone countries, something investors said could help calm the crisis during the long time that it will take to expand the E.F.S.F.
Germany has also resisted calls to allow the European Central Bank to act as a lender of last resort to put out financial fires during the transition to a more federalist structure in the euro-zone.
The O.E.C.D. called on politicians to get the expanded bailout fund running as fast as possible, and said the E.C.B. must be allowed to step in more than it has to stem the crisis.
For now, the organization said it expects Europe’s leaders to do the right thing, and take sufficient action to avoid the type of defaults by European countries foreseen by Moody’s, as well as ward off both a sharp pullback in lending by spooked banks and the possibility of a wave of bank failures.
The Moody's report came as anxiety intensified over Italy, whose borrowing costs have shot back above 7 percent in recent days despite promises by Mario Monti, the new prime minister, to enact a new austerity plan designed to reduce a mountain of debt.
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