This article comes from Bloomberg Businessweek.
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Pope's Economists Say Greek Crisis Shows New Euro Treaty Needed
By Flavia Krause-Jackson
May 5 (Bloomberg) -- Vatican economists says the Greece crisis and the resulting market turmoil threatening to engulf the rest of southern Europe show the need for a “new treaty” to protect the 11-year-old euro.
The Vatican today hosted a special plenary session entitled “Crisis in a Global Economy: Re-planning the Journey,” featuring professors from the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences founded Pope John Paul II.
The economists “addressed the recent package of relief measures, as well as the possibility that new European structures might be needed, not excluding the possibility of a new treaty to better secure the foundations of the common currency,” according to a Vatican statement.
Euro-region ministers on May 2 agreed to the three-year bailout package for Greece to prevent a default and stop the crisis from spreading to 16-nation euro region. Under the financial lifeline, Greece will be forced to cut its budget deficit below the EU limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product by the end of 2014 from 13.6 percent in 2009.
Pope Benedict XVI, spiritual leader of 1 billion Catholics worldwide and head of the world’s smallest state, has been vocal on the economy.
The 82-year-old pontiff last July published the 150-page “Caritas in Veritate,” Latin for “Charity in Truth,” that outlined his reflections on capitalism and examines ways out of the worst recession since World War II.
--Editor: Andrew Davis, Kevin Costelloe
