Italian Prime Minister: Eurozone Crisis Revives 'Prejudices' in Europe

WORLD -- February 7, 2012 at 12:03 PM EDT

Italian Prime Minister: Eurozone Crisis Revives 'Prejudices' in Europe

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said Tuesday that the eurozone crisis has brought up "old phantoms about prejudices between" North and South Europe. View a preview clip above, and watch the full interview on Tuesday's NewsHour.

"The eurozone crisis has indeed brought about quite a bit of misunderstandings and the re-emergence of old phantoms about prejudices between the North, the South of Europe, and a lot of mutual resentment," said Monti.

"And it is very, very important that we all take this with great attention in order to avoid that something that was meant to be the culminating point of the European construction -- namely, the single currency -- turns out to be, through psychological negative effects, a factor of disintegration of Europe."

As for Italy specifically, Monti said he tries to avoid backlashes to EU-imposed changes to Italians' way of life "by always presenting the necessary sacrifices that Italians have to go through not as an imposition from Brussels or Germany or the European Central Bank, but rather as a necessary step that Italians have to undertake also at the suggestion of Europe, basically for their own interests, for the interests of ourselves and of future generations of Italians."

Monti sat down with Margaret Warner on the eve of his trip to the United States and meetings with President Obama at the White House.

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