European elders call for solution to crisis

A group of European elder statesmen has urged euro zone governments to resolve the financial crisis, warning that it risks destroying the global financial system.

They called for a legally binding agreement to establish a common treasury, reinforce common supervision and regulation and deliver a growth strategy.

"The euro is far from perfect, as this crisis has revealed," they wrote in a letter to the Financial Times.

"But the answer is to fix its faults rather than allowing it to undermine and perhaps destroy the global financial system," it added.

The 17 signatories included former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, ex-Belgian premiers Jean-Luc Dehaene and Guy Verhofstadt, former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, recent French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner and former Spanish economy minister and European monetary affairs commissioner Pedro Solbes, as well as investor George Soros. more