Monti Says Europe Growth Policy Crucial
ROME--Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who is putting his country through tough spending cuts to escape Europe's debt crisis, warned that European leaders must take concrete steps to fuel the Continent's economic growth or risk threatening its long-term future.</br></br>"Europe will not be a nice place to be in five years from now if we haven't solved the problem of how to grow," Mr. Monti said in an interview before heading to the U.S. for talks with President Barack Obama.</br></br>"We have to say what growth will look like in a fiscally compacted union," said Mr. Monti, referring to the new "fiscal compact" Europe's leaders agreed to last month to ensure greater budget discipline in the euro zone.</br></br>The comments by Mr. Monti, a 68-year-old economics professor who heads a government of national unity aimed at steering Italy out of the euro-zone crisis, underscore a growing belief among policy makers here that the Continent needs to slowly start moving beyond austerity packages and figure out how to prevent the Continent from falling into years of stagnation.</br></br>Europe still has big fires to put out, namely coming up with a fresh bailout for Greece and ensuring that Italy and Spain take credible steps to rein in their public spending. But economists say structural economic changes across the Continent are just as important to Europe's long-term prosperity as is fiscal discipline. Euro-zone gross domestic product is expected to fall by 0.5% this year and to rise by a meager 0.8% next year, according to the International Monetary Fund.