German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said that countries that share the euro will need a common financial policy at some point.
He spoke against a background of how to resolve the euro zone's chronic sovereign debt crisis, which is proving difficult to do because each of its 17 members has retained control over their respective financial and fiscal policies.
The German minister also responded to former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who said this week that the single European currency was breaking down.
'If I were American I would ask myself if the dollar will still exist in 10 years. It is wrong to believe that the euro will disappear', Mr Schaeuble said.
Mr Greenspan told a Washington forum last Tuesday that ‘the euro is breaking down’ and that uncertainty stemming from the process was holding back the US economy.
He said a key problem was that European banks are falling into trouble because of their huge holdings of debt of countries close to default.
