German chancellor Angela Merkel voiced support for ECB president Mario Draghi’s crisis-fighting strategy yesterday and pressed her European partners to move swiftly towards a closer integration of fiscal policies, saying time was running short.

On a visit to the Canadian capital Ottawa, Dr Merkel sent a message to fellow European leaders ahead of a series of top-level meetings next week.

“I made clear once again that we need a long-term, sustainable solution,” Dr Merkel said.

“It is a question of taking the steps that weren’t taken when the currency union was created, namely a political union,” she said. “We are on a good path on many of these issues, but time is of the essence. We are fully aware of this.”

Dr Merkel has resisted pressure to introduce euro zone bonds as a solution to the three-year-old debt crisis and is instead pressing for a so-called “fiscal union” under which states would cede sovereignty over their budgets to Brussels.

However, many euro zone leaders are reluctant to go along. – (Reuters)