The euro area debt crisis has spread to healthy economies, said EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn in Helsinki on Thursday.
Rehn made the remarks in a speech at a forum on current European and world situations.
Germany's disappointing bond auction on Wednesday showed that the influence of the euro area debt crisis touched off by Greece has already begun to spread and touch the euro area's hard core, said Rehn.
The current situation is extremely serious, he said. The time for partial solutions to the crisis was over, he added.
"We either face the slow collapse of the eurozone or a significance strengthening of the economic area in order to prevent in advance further crises of the kind we currently face," he said.
He called on euro zone nations to make bold decision as soon as possible to solve the debt crisis. He hoped that a relevant solution would be made in the EU Summit to be held in December.