EU's Rehn: Euro zone will integrate or slowly fall

The euro zone will either undergo much deeper integration or will gradually fall apart, EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told the European Parliament on Wednesday.

"The economic and monetary union will either have to be completed through much deeper integration or we will have to accept a gradual disintegration of over half a century of European integration," Rehn said in a prepared speech.

Some of the integration may have to be accomplished through a change to the European Union treaty, and although it would not be an immediate solution to the debt crisis, it would create a stability union to prevent crises in the future.

Germany and France are pushing for changes to the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the fundamental law underpinning the union, to introduce much stricter controls over euro zone national budgets and prevent unchecked debt growth. Read more at Reuters