Soros said Europe faced a prolonged depression and an acrimonious end to the European unification project if steps were not taken to help its southern nations grow their way out of the debt crisis by collectively assuming some of their debt and relaxing its German-led insistence on austerity.
"Germany should either lead in developing a growth policy, political union and burden-sharing, accept the cost of leadership, or leave through an amicable arrangement," Soros told Reuters in an interview with Reuters television in Vienna.
Soros, a liberal philanthropist who rose to fame as an investor on a big bet against the British pound in 1992, said a Germany-free euro zone could be more competitive in exports and service its debts more cheaply with a weaker, France-led "Latin" euro.
Otherwise, Germany should step up and accept its de-facto leadership role, and abandon its Bundesbank-led ideological opposition to central bank financing of states and strict adherence to a goal of inflation close to but below 2 percent.
Berlin has giving its backing to the European Central Bank's new bond-buying program to lower struggling euro zone countries' borrowing costs, which Germany's central bank has criticized.
Soros said the plan would likely buy Europe "a longer period than previous measures that were taken." "It's a more dramatic move," he added, but he predicted that Spain and Italy would not apply to be part of the program.
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