萨科奇：希腊加入欧盟是“错误的”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said allowing Greece into the eurozone in 2001 was a "mistake".

法国总统萨科奇称，2001年时允许希腊加入欧盟是个“错误的”决定。

He said Greece was "not ready" at the time. But, he added, it could be rescued thanks to Wednesday's EU deal on the euro debt crisis.

In response, Greece's foreign minister told the BBC that Athens was not the source of the crisis, and that no country should be made a scapegoat（替罪羊） .

The agreement reached in Brussels has triggered a worldwide shares rally.

In a TV interview on Thursday, Mr Sarkozy said admitting Greece to the eurozone had been "a mistake" because the country had "entered with false [economic] figures. It was not ready".

He added that he was confident the current Greek government would emerge from the crisis and that Wednesday's deal had averted（避免） a "catastrophe".

"If Greece had defaulted, there would have been a domino effect（多米诺效应） carrying everyone away," Mr Sarkozy said.

Speaking to the BBC, Greek Foreign Minister Stavros Lambrinidis said: "Greece is in the middle of the storm, but it is not the source of the problems of European debt and deficits.

"We see this with Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy. So it doesn't help to scapegoat a particular country when you're dealing with a European problem."

The comments come after European leaders clinched a deal at marathon talks in Brussels. The main provisions are:

Banks holding Greek debt are to accept a 50% loss
 A new mechanism is to boost the eurozone's main bailout fund (the European Financial Stability Facility) to about 1tn euros (£880bn; $1.4tn)
 Banks must also raise more capital to guard against losses resulting from any future government defaults

The agreement is aimed at preventing the crisis from spreading to larger eurozone economies, but the leaders said work still needed to be done.

BBC business editor Robert Peston says EU leaders have bought some time, and the markets will give them the benefit of the doubt for a few weeks or months.

On Friday, Klaus Regling, chief executive of the EFSF, held talks in Beijing, as the eurozone bloc continued its efforts to persuade China - and other emerging economies - to help rescue it from its crippling（造成严重后果的） debt crisis.

Analysts say that a possible Chinese investment could be up to $100bn, the BBC's Martin Patience in Beijing reports.