MNI (FRANKFURT) - The idea the eurozone could dissolve is not automatically ridiculous, Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, said in an interview published Monday.

Asked by German business daily Handelsblatt whether predictions the eurozone could come apart are realistic against the backdrop of Greece's severe fiscal problems, Juncker replied: "That is for me not an absurd idea. Since we brought the euro to life, I must live with some critics exploiting every incident so as to bring it down after the fact."

"Seriously: I don't believe that competitive differences per se lead to a weakness of the euro. After all, there are also such differences in the dollar area. However, the fact is that the divergences have tended to widened too much."

Juncker warned that "the markets cannot act as though there were no efforts in Greece for budget consolidation" and noted that these efforts are "an obligation of the Greeks and no option."

"Should the Greeks stick to the very stringent conditions and the markets nevertheless speculate against Greece, we will not simply let the markets march on through," he warned.

Declining to be precise about what steps would be taken to restrain the markets lest his answer "lead to a let-up of savings efforts in Greece," the oftentimes poetic Juncker added nonetheless that "we have the instruments of torture in our cellar and we show them when it is necessary."

It is in any case "clear, that in accordance with the Treaty, it will not come to a bailout," he said.

The proposal of the IMF that central banks accept higher inflation is "not purposeful," Juncker objected. "We would endanger the culture of stability built up with effort in the eurozone. Inflation would intensify still more the competitive differences in the eurozone."

Bundesbank head and European Central Bank Governing Council member Axel Weber's rejection of the proposal must thus be underscored, he said.

Weber, whose name is at the forefront of the public discussion as to ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet's successor, "is an outstanding central banker and would be without doubt an outstanding ECB president," Juncker emphasized. "Italian central bank head Mario Draghi is also an outstanding central bank head."

Juncker professed his annoyance at the perception in Germany that he opposes Weber as successor to Trichet, stressing that he was only against the view that the choice of Portugal's Vitor Constancio as next ECB vice president can be seen as a "preliminary decision for a German ECB president."

As the Maastricht Treaty stipulates that the ECB's top management is to be chosen according to professional criteria, two southern Europeans could theoretically occupy the top two posts, Juncker said.

"A proven stability-minded policy-maker from southern Europe cannot be rejected just because he comes from southern Europe," he insisted.