`Europe's debt crisis to be prolonged'

Seoul -  Europe's debt crisis has the nature of protracting and consistently existing due to the failure to tackle the region's fundamental structural problems, South Korea's  finance minister said Friday.

"If we can call the 2008 global financial crisis a one-time thunderstorm, then the current crisis is like a seemingly incessant rainy season we are being encountered now," Strategy and  Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan told foreign correspondents in Seoul.

European leaders agreed on short-term measures to help ease the region's crisis, but the market has judged these measures lack detailed action plans and a time table to address the  eurozone's structural problems, Xinhua quoted Bahk as saying.

The minister urged the leaders to suggest specific measures and schedules to cure the eurozone's fundamental structural faults, saying that without the suggestion, market anxiety will  persist and the global recovery will be delayed.

To tackle the prolonged crisis, South Korea planned to increase public funds and investment by 4 trillion won ($3.51 billion) in the second half of this year, while maximising fiscal  expenditure within limits, Bahk said.