NICOSIA (Reuters) - All five European nations that received bailouts are well positioned for future growth if economic reforms continue, the head of the euro zone's ESM rescue fund said on Tuesday.
Klaus Regling said programme countries Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Cyprus were "reform champions" for the depth of their adjustment over the past three and a half years.
"The policies chosen were in the best interest of each individual country and of all euro area as a whole. Any alternative that would have included the risk of a disorderly exit, or a disintegration of the currency union, would have proved much more costly than the path we chose," he told a conference in Nicosia, Cyprus.
(Reporting By Michele Kambas, editing by John Stonestreet)