国际英语新闻:Obama urges bold action to check eurozone crisis, spur growth

WASHINGTON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- In a hastily arranged White House press conference on Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama pressed for a bigger role of government in curbing the simmering eurozone debt crisis and boost the anemic growth on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

Eurozone debt crisis posed a big threat to the U.S. economic recovery, with the region facing the risk of a renewed recession, Obama told reporters.

The press conference came after a weak job report and a string of other economic data showing U.S. economic growth was slowing and the impacts of the escalating eurozone debt crisis had reached U.S. shores, putting pressure on U.S. policy makers to take action.

Experts held that the two-year-old eurozone debt crisis, the epicenter of the global economic slowdown, posed formidable challenges to the United States through waning exports and financial markets fluctuation and dimmed the outlook of Obama's reelection bid.

"Obviously this matters to us because Europe is our largest economic trading partner. If there's less demand for our products in places like Paris or Madrid it could mean less businesses -- or less business for manufacturers in places like Pittsburgh or Milwaukee," said Obama.

He has been in close consultations with European leaders to discuss developments of the eurozone debt turmoil in recent weeks, ahead of a critical Greek election.

Greece is poised to conduct a second round of general election on June 17, in a bid to resolve the political stalemate after the May 6 national election that produced a legislature divided among supporters and critics of the austerity measures mandated by the global rescue package. Standard & Poor's earlier this week forecast a one-in-three chance that Greece will exit the currency bloc.

"With respect to Greece, which has important elections next weekend, we've said that it is in everybody's interest for Greece to remain in the eurozone while respecting its commitments to reform," Obama reiterated the stance in the declaration of Group of Eight (G8) leaders at the Camp David summit he hosted last month.

Obama stressed the importance of checking Spain's banking crisis, as investors were worried that Spain might seek an international bailout like Greece.

"In the short term, they've got to stabilize their financial system. And part of that is taking clear action as soon as possible to inject capital into weak banks," he added.

However, Obama exuded confidence in European leaders' capacity to contain the two-year-old crisis, saying that "the decisions required are tough, but Europe has the capacity to make them".