MADRID (AFP) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Saturday we called EU leaders to a powerful response to the crisis economic ripple throughout Europe.
During a visit to Madrid, she has also welcomed reforms by the Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to revive the economy and rein in debt aims to allay the fears of market which Spain will follow in the footsteps of the Greece, the Ireland and Portugal for a financial bailout plan.
"It is our hope that European leaders continue to ensure that the European face of the crisis response is strong, flexible and effective", Clinton said at a press conference jointly with Jiminez of Trinidad for the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs.
"Under the direction of Zapatero the Spanish Government has taken important measures to strengthen its finances, restore the banking sector and to improve its competitiveness." We understand how difficult these steps are.
"And we know that Spain still faces major challenges as it works to consolidate its finances, to reduce unemployment and to overcome the legacy of the global economic crisis," Clinton added.
Zapatero government has raised taxes and expenses with stroke and to lower the public deficit and reforming the labour law to make it easier to lay off to encourage hiring and bring down a rate of unemployment of more than 21%, the highest in the developed world.
The reforms have fueled protests and hurt the popularity of the Government but Clinton said that she was confident that Madrid "will continue the reform process".
"I want to say publicly how much we understand that it takes time and patience of these changes and to see through", she added.
His comments echoed those of Secretary of the Treasury American Timothy Geithner, who earlier this month warned that ambitious tax reform plans put in place in several European nations will take years, not months, to bear fruit.
Week last Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke warned that failure to solve the European sovereign debt crisis could threaten the stability of the global financial system if a solution is found.
"We mostly just follows closely the situation and ensuring best as we can that our own institutions are well positioned to sovereign debt in the so-called country of the devices," he said, referring to smaller economies, sick of the euro, as the Greece, the Ireland and Portugal.
"Messy by default in one of these countries would probably be roil financial markets around the world." It could have a significant impact on credit spreads, the price of the shares and so on. "And so in this regard, I think that the effects of the United States would be quite significant", he added.
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