Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, a member of the executive board of the European Central Bank, on Thursday warned industrialised countries that their economic recovery was under threat as they failed to understand the full scale of structural reforms.

Bini Smaghi said industrialised countries were emerging from the crisis poorer, more indebted and with lower prospects for growth and in the current environment faced two risks. Firstly, there was the danger that many were deluding themselves that the crisis