Euro crisis may be over in 2-3 years

VIENNA (Reuters) - The euro zone can conquer its crisis in the next few years if countries get their financial houses in order, the head of the bloc's rescue fund was quoted saying in Der Spiegel magazine, scolding Germans for being too pessimistic about the region's outlook.

"There is good reason to hope that the crisis is over in two to three years' time," European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) chief Klaus Regling said, according to a preview of the weekly German magazine.

The Eurozone Crisis Then and Now

The expansion of the European financial crisis and its deepening into a political crisis has followed a clear causal chain produced by a series of missed opportunities.

The problem began in early 2009, as a knock-on effect from the 2008 global financial crisis, which had already claimed Iceland as a victim. Iceland was not an institutional issue for the EU, but in 2009 Eastern members of the EU not using the euro began to have balance-of-payments problems. They suffered effective devaluations of their national currencies and sought help from Brussels to resolve their mounting budget deficits. In response, the EU doubled the funds in an existing facility to address balance-of-payments problems.