By Adam Haigh 
 
 LONDON — At least one country will pull out of the euro area this year as the breakup of the single currency begins, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research. 
 
 “It now looks as though 2012 will be the year when the euro starts to break up,” the London-based CEBR said in a statement today. “It is not a done deal yet — we are only forecasting a 60 percent probability — but our forecast is that by the end of the year at least one country (and probably more) will leave.” 
 
 CEBR said the likelihood of a euro breakup in the next decade has increased to 99 percent. 
 
 European leaders return to work this week seeking to buy time for the Spanish and Italian governments to wrest control over their debt and rescue the euro from fragmentation in its 10th anniversary year. 
 
 Ten years after euro bank notes replaced national currencies on Jan. 1, 2002, the euro has for the first time recorded two consecutive annual losses against the U.S. dollar while plunging to a record low against the yen. That raises the pressure on leaders as they struggle to hold the monetary union together in the face of credit downgrades, European Union splits and a looming recession that might compound rising debt. 
 
 The crisis may force “most of the French and German banking systems” to seek bailouts to compensate for writedowns on their holdings of sovereign debt, CEBR said. “They might even be nationalized as well. Many other European banks will go back into crisis.” 
 
 The euro was trading at $1.2946 at 1:26 p.m. in Brussels, down 0.1 percent on the day. 
 
 Bloomberg.com ||||| Jan. 1 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she expects turbulence in 2012 as she does “everything” to save the euro and end Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. 
 
 “The path to overcoming this won’t be without setbacks but at the end of this path Europe will emerge stronger from the crisis than before,” Merkel said in a New Year’s television speech yesterday. In his New Year’s message, Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said his nation will confront a “difficult” 2012 and must continue efforts to stay in the euro. 
 
 Merkel will meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Berlin on Jan. 9 to discuss revisions to Europe’s fiscal rulebook following decisions made at a Dec. 9 summit. A final accord by euro leaders on the German-French proposals agreed at the summit is due in March. 
 
 “Today, you can trust that I will do everything to strengthen the euro,” Merkel said. “This will only succeed if Europe learns from the mistakes of the past. One of these is that a common currency can only be successful if we cooperate more than in the past in Europe.” 
 
 The euro had a second consecutive annual loss against the dollar in 2011 for the first time in a decade as rising yields on the region’s sovereign debt reflected speculation about defaults and stalling economic growth. 
 
 In its 13th year of existence, the 17-nation currency fell below 100 yen for the first time since 2001 as the region’s leaders bailed out Portugal, and Italy, with the world’s third- largest bond market, had its worst year since at least 1992. The Swiss franc rose against a majority of its most-traded counterparts as Europe’s debt crisis spurred demand for safety. 
 
 ‘Crucial’ Months in Greece 
 
 A crisis that began in Greece two years ago has moved to the euro-area’s core and leaders are struggling to convince investors they can contain the risk and assure the euro’s survival. 
 
 For Greece, “the next three months will be particularly crucial,” Papademos said in an e-mailed statement yesterday sent from his Athens-based office. “The decisions taken will determine the course of Greece in the coming decades.” 
 
 Papademos, appointed on Nov. 11 as head of a government backed by three of the five parliamentary parties, is trying to secure loans under a 130 billion-euro ($168.5 billion) bailout for Greece agreed to in October by European Union leaders before elections are held. Measures include negotiating a debt swap with private creditors that will cut 100 billion euros off Greece’s burden. 
 
 Germans are split over whether the debt crisis can be fixed, with 52 percent of voters saying that a “fundamental solution” can be found to the euro-region’s woes, according to a Forsa GmbH poll for financial consultants AWD Holding AG published on Dec. 29. 
 
 German Polls 
 
 Some 22 percent of the respondents expect the region to abandon the euro and return to national currencies while 90 percent said in response to a separate question that other euro member states would join Greece, Portugal and Ireland in needing aid. 
 
 Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble urged Germans to show more “calm” over the crisis in 2012, saying in a Dec. 24 interview in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that it is “manageable.” Germany plans to speed up paying installments to Europe’s permanent bailout fund to boost market confidence in the euro area’s resolve to beat the crisis. 
 
 The euro-region is “close to a turning point” in the crisis, Norbert Barthle, the budget spokesman for Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said in an interview on Dec. 29, adding that Germany may not even be forced to raise its net borrowing next year to accommodate increased payments to the European Stability Mechanism due to rising tax revenue. 
 
 --With assistance from Tom Stoukas in Athens and Allison Bennett and Catarina Saraiva in New York. Editors: Leon Mangasarian, Dick Schumacher. 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Parkin in Berlin at bparkin@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net
– Welcome to the year that the Eurozone begins its breakup and slides into certain doom—or so says one economic think tank in Europe. There is a 60% chance that "at least one country (and probably more) will leave" the euro in 2012, the head of the Centre for Economics and Business Research says. He adds that Greece's departure seems "pretty certain" and Italy will "more likely than not" follow suit, the Telegraph reports. CEBR gives the euro currency a 99% chance of failing over the next 10 years, and warns that a global depression may follow. Along the way, the think tank says, French and German banking systems could seek bailouts and even be nationalized, the Financial Post reports. For now, European leaders are trying to give Spain and Italy time to gain control over their debt. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that 2012 will be turbulent but that she will "do everything to strengthen the euro," Bloomberg reports. (Read about S&P's plan for the Eurozone.)