The eurozone will not break up despite the debt crisis sweeping the currency bloc, the chief executive of the European Union bailout fund said on Tuesday.
"The euro will not break up," said Klaus Regling, the CEO of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), adding that investors' fears over such a development were "unfounded".
He also told reporters in Singapore that "no country will be forced to leave the euro area."
Regling said that a move by Standard and Poor's to downgrade the EFSF's credit rating will have little impact because two other credit risk evaluators, Moody's and Fitch, have maintained their triple A ranking for the bailout fund.
"There's no need to get overly excited yet," he said, referring to the decision by S&P on Monday to slash EFSF's credit rating by one notch to AA+.
"As long as it is only one ratings agency, there is no need to do anything really."