Change EU Treaty to Stabilize the Eurozone, Says Trichet

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said the European Union's treaty should be changed to prevent one member state from destabilizing the rest of the bloc, while urging stronger Eurozone governance.

In my view, it is necessary to change the treaty to prevent one member state from straying and creating problems for all the others, Trichet told Europe 1 radio on Sunday.

But Trichet added that he expected existing governance rules would be applied much more rigorously in the future, even without a change in the treaty.

All advanced economies were being affected by a crisis at the moment, but Europe's particular problem was that some countries had not respected treaty rules, Trichet said.

We don't have a federal budget, we don't have a political federation, so we have to fully respect the constraints and the mutual supervision rules that exist in the Eurozone, he said.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq and Gus Trompiz; Editing by Sophie Walker)

Reuters