Storbritannias tidligere finansminister Lamont sier tiden er ved å renne ut for euroen.

Ettertiden vil spørrre og undre seg over at ingenting ble gjort, for skriften har stått på veggen lenge.

Former Conservative chancellor Lord Lamont has warned that the euro will not survive without urgent action to resolve the eurozone debt crisis.

His comments came as European leaders face renewed pressure to boost the firepower of the EU’s multibillion-euro bailout package after Belgium’s credit rating was cut.

Credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded Belgium by two notches to Aa3, its fourth-highest rating. It warned that indebted eurozone countries such as Belgium will find it increasingly hard to fund their debts or achieve economic growth in the face of Europe’s austerity drive.

«The fragility of the sovereign debt markets is increasingly entrenched and unlikely to be reversed in the near future,» warned Moody’s.

Lamont said the markets did not believe the EU’s response to the crisis was credible.

«We need to get on with this a bit faster if the euro is going to survive in any sort of form,» he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. «The choice is between contraction or explosion.

«There is not time left. Italy and other countries cannot go on with interest on their bonds near to 7%. At some point there is going to be a real crisis.

«One of the big dangers is the longer it goes on, the more likely it is that a big financial institution somewhere is going to get into trouble because of its holding of sovereign bonds.

«This is going to happen if a crisis solution is not found very soon.»

Euro will not survive without urgent action, says Lord Lamont
Former Tory chancellor tells Radio 4’s Today programme that time is running out for eurozone countries with bonds near to 7%