Poland's foreign minister has appealed to Germany, the European Union's most powerful economy, to show leadership and avert the collapse of the euro zone.
"There is nothing inevitable about Europe's decline. But we are standing on the edge of a precipice. This is the scariest moment of my ministerial life but therefore also the most sublime," Radoslaw Sikorski said in an unusually forthright speech in Berlin on Monday evening.
He said the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis now posed the biggest threat to the prosperity and stability of Poland, which is outside the common currency but still hopes one day to join.
"I demand of Germany that, for your own sake and for ours, you help it (the euro zone) survive and prosper. You know full well that nobody else can do it," said Sikorski.
"I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity," he said, alluding to the troubled past of Poland's ties with its bigger neighbour.
"The biggest threat to the security and prosperity of Poland would be the collapse of the euro zone," Sikorski said.
Sikorski did not spell out what Poland wanted Germany to do, but Polish officials have in the past expressed support for euro bonds jointly guaranteed by euro zone nations.
Berlin has also come under heavy international pressure to allow the European Central Bank to embark on unrestricted purchases of stricken euro zone countries' sovereign debt through quantitative easing.
Germany has so far strongly opposed both eurobonds and a more active role for the ECB, citing fears that indebted countries would no longer have an incentive to reform their economies and also concerns about reigniting inflation.
Euro zone finance ministers were due to agree on Tuesday the details of bolstering their bailout fund to help prevent contagion in bond markets.
In his speech, Sikorski supported calls for much closer economic integration in the EU, including greater supervisory powers over national budgets for the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm, but said sensitive issues such as taxation should remain under the control of member states.
"The draconian powers to supervise national budgets should be wielded only by agreement of the European Parliament," he added, underscoring Warsaw's reservations about handing too much power over core policy areas to the unelected Commission.
Sikorski was re-confirmed as foreign minister this month after Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centre-right, pro-euro government won an Oct. 9 election.
The Tusk government, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, has forged good ties with Germany, Poland's biggest trade partner, since taking power in 2007.
