ROME, May 10 (Reuters) - The $1 trillion global emergency package to stabilise the euro has allowed the single currency bloc to emerge strongly from a "life or death" battle and averted global crisis, Italy's economy minister said on Monday. Speaking after markets reacted positively to the international package of standby funds, loan guarantees and central bank measures, Giulio Tremonti said policymakers had feared the euro zone was going to "dissolve." "The battle we fought was almost for life or death," Tremonti said in a television interview with Sky Italia. "If we had failed we would have seen the fall of the euro, then of the dollar and the other currencies. It would have been an almost global catastrophe." Instead, after stemming potential contagion from Greece's debt crisis, "now Europe is much stronger," Tremonti argued. He added that Italy had played an "important role" in the deal on both a political and technical level.
Keywords: EU GREECE/ITALY (Reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, gavin.jones@reuters.com; Phone: +39-06-8522-4232) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. All rights reserved.
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