Obama's advice for Europe

European governments should step up their efforts to get on top of the current debt crisis in their countries, US President Barack Obama told reporters in Washington on Friday.

He said a protracted recession in Europe could drag down the rest of the world and would certainly affect the pace of the US recovery.

"The solutions to these problems are hard, but there are solutions," Obama said at the White House.

The US president suggested European leaders inject more capital into the banking system on the continent to prevent an economic meltdown.

Aware of the electorate

Emphasizing that Washington should be careful not to scold Europe for its current woes or tell leaders what to do, Obama nonetheless sided with those who had been supporting an extra growth agenda amid the recent turmoil over the unstable situation in Greece and the full-fledged banking crisis in Spain.

Obama called Europe's endeavors towards the continent's genuine financial union a step in the right direction, saying Europeans "understood the seriousness of the challenge" at hand.

Although sharing the concerns of economic pundits, Obama claimed the US had become less vulnerable to unfavorable developments elsewhere.

"We can absorb some of the shocks that come from across the Atlantic," he maintained.

Obama spoke after difficult turns for his re-election prospects, including last week's report that the domestic unemployment rate had risen slightly to 8.2 percent.

hg/sms (dpa, Reuters, AP)