Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank (ECB) insisted that the euro zone was more stable than a year ago but that the region needed more integration - and the U.K should be a part of that.
In his speech at a gala dinner in London's financial center on Thursday, Draghi told the audience that the ECB had prevented market "panic and…financial meltdown."
"We can ... safely say that our Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is a more stable union today than it was a year ago," he said. "The answer to this crisis has not been less Europe but more Europe. The ECB as an institution at the frontier of European integration has played an active role in addressing the crisis. The credibility of the ECB and it steadfast commitment to its primary objective is unshaken in both the markets and the people of Europe."
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Markets were "fully confident that the euro is a strong and stable currency," he told the audience, almost a year since he first told markets that he would do "whatever it takes" to shore up the single currency.
He added, however, that the economic conditions in the region remained challenging and governments must push on with reforms and banking union plans: "The crisis that we are facing today is much more multi-faceted and that means that the policy response must also be much more multi-faceted and must involve a variety of institutions," he said.
UK Must Be More 'European'