Slovak PM: eurozone will not survive in current form

The eurozone is unlikely to survive in its current form and one or more countries will probably have to leave the 17-nation single currency bloc, Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico said Sunday. "A time will come when some countries won't be able to keep up with the pace of consolidation of public finances and meet its obligations and one, maybe two states won't stay in the eurozone," Fico told Markiza TV. "If Greece isn't able meet its obligations, there should be a controlled exit," he said, adding that an uncontrolled exit would harm Slovakia's economic growth. "Right now I think that Greece is not meeting its obligations, asking for more exceptions and more time," he added. Slovakia, an ex-communist economy of 5.4 million people and one of the poorest members of the eurozone, was the only member state that refused to participate in an initial rescue package for Greece in 2010. It was also the last eurozone member state to ratify the temporary EFSF rescue fund in October 2011, and only at the cost of calling a snap election held in March where Fico's Smer-SD social democrats scored a landslide victory over the former centre-right government. Having joined the EU in 2004 and the eurozone in 2009, Bratislava imposed harsh austerity measures to keep its own public finances on track during the economic crisis.