Denmark says all EU states should tackle crisis

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - All EU states should join forces to tackle the euro-zone debt crisis, not just countries that use the single currency, Denmark's prime minister said on Tuesday, weeks before her government takes over the bloc's rotating presidency.

Denmark, an EU member that has kept its own currency, would encourage all 27 EU countries to take part in discussions on financial regulation and others areas, said Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

"We need to understand that Europe is facing this challenge together ... The 27 (EU member states) should be working together," she told journalists in the Danish capital.

She said that the 17-member euro group had to take some decisions, such as on the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), among themselves since they would pay for it.

"But in other areas, we have been asked -- all of us -- to participate, and that goes for the recapitalization of the banking system, also the regulation of the whole financial sector in Europe is a job for all of us."

There have been signs of tensions between some euro and non-euro countries over the handling of the crisis.

Earlier this month, aides to German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was running out of patience with what she saw as constant sniping at the euro zone by Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron.

Thorning-Schmidt, a Social Democrat who won an election in mid-September to end a decade of center-right rule, said the euro-zone crisis was perhaps the EU's biggest challenge ever and required concerted action by Union members.

"I don't think that we can get out of this crisis unless we understand that we are one Union with 27 members, which means that we have to use the institutions that we have, the structures that we have, and this is one of the things the Danish presidency will be working on," Thorning-Schmidt said.

"I have made that very clear to my European colleagues," she added.

Denmark will take over the rotating European Union presidency on January 1.

She said Denmark had not been left out of important decisions affecting it so far, and added that her message was not meant as criticism of the leadership shown by Germany in the crisis.

(Reporting by John Acher)