BEIJING - There is strong political will within the European Union to keep the eurozone alive, and the recent efforts to find solutions to the debt crisis and build safeguards for the future are steps in this regard, said Herman Van Rompuy, European Council President.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Euro Exhibition Wednesday morning at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, he said: "By keeping the eurozone, we are keeping the European Union alive and kicking."

The EU launched the euro, a common currency for the bloc some 10 years ago and it has gone on to be the second reserve currency after the US dollar.

"At that time we underestimated that we would need more economic and fiscal underpinning of the monetary union. That's what we are correcting now."

"In the last two years, we have established new mechanisms, more survey mechanism, more rescue mechanism."

Twenty-five of the 27 member states in the EU are expected to join a fiscal treaty in March that aims to enforce budget discipline.

This is another step toward closer fiscal and economic union within the eurozone, said Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, the central bank.

"It will help improve the sustainability of the fiscal policies of the zone and sovereign debt situation," said Zhou. "China fully supports the EU's efforts to solve the debt crisis."