AlQa'dah 4, 1432, Oct 2, 2011, SPA -- Europe must urgently fix its banks and deal with its debts, British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday, warning that the euro zone crisis risked harming Britain's economy and stunting global growth, according to Reuters. Speaking on the opening day of his Conservative Party's annual conference, Cameron said that he would stick to his coalition's deficit-cutting plans despite signs that the British economy is stalling. He also said Britain must remain part of the European Union, disappointing right-wingers in his party who see the continental crisis as a chance for an abrupt end to four decades of closer integration with EU partners. Any prolonged economic crisis in the rest of Europe, the UK's main export market, would hurt Britain when the government is trying to rebalance a struggling economy by increasing the sale of British goods and services overseas. "The euro zone is a threat not just to itself but also a threat to the British economy and a threat to the worldwide economy," Cameron told BBC television. "Action needs to be taken in the next coming weeks to strengthen Europe's banks, to build the defences that the euro zone has, to deal with the problems of debt. They've got to do that now. They've got to get ahead of the markets now." The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, in power since May 2010, is increasingly concerned about a lack of growth in the British economy, with critics saying its tough austerity plan is only making matters worse. -- SPA
