Trichet: Europe at epicenter of global debt crisis

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet appears at the Bretton Woods Committee International Council in Washington, September 23, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet appears at the Bretton Woods Committee International Council in Washington, September 23, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

By Marc Jones

WASHINGTON | Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:28pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The euro zone is the epicenter of a much broader sovereign debt crisis, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet warned on Friday.

Trichet said that while the euro zone was the focus of financial market fears about debt-strained countries, the problem was actually wider spread.

"We have in front of us a global crisis of sovereign risk and we (euro zone) are the epicenter of this global crisis," he said during a speech to the Bretton Woods committee.

He added that the current situation was also more precarious than when Lehman Brothers collapsed and sent the global economy into a tailspin in late 2008, as there was no longer the belief in markets that key countries would not default on their debts.

(Reporting by Marc Jones, Additional reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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