all eyes on tense summit as euro crisis deepens
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today
Arab Today, arab today
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today

All eyes on tense summit as euro crisis deepens

Arab Today, arab today

Arab Today, arab today All eyes on tense summit as euro crisis deepens

London - AFP

EU leaders debate "a big leap forward" to strengthen their union and save the euro at a two-day summit starting Thursday, but divisions may scuttle efforts to bring the currency back from the brink. European Union heads of state and government gather from 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) as the debt crisis, now in its third year, widened this week. Cyprus and Spain have joined the earlier victims of contagion -- Greece, Portugal and Ireland -- in requesting aid. With Italy, the eurozone's third economy, also threatened, the EU is under pressure from world leaders to deliver a convincing plan to prevent a collapse of the single currency, which would have unfathomable global repercussions. The summit "is perhaps the most important since the foundation of the EU" 60 years ago, said the head of the global IFF bank lobby Charles Dallara. "It's about winning back the trust and confidence of long-term investors," he told the German weekly, Die Zeit. "I'm afraid they'll only allow themselves to be convinced by comprehensive solutions." The 19th summit since 2010, it has, like others before it, been billed the mother-of-all-summits, a "last chance" for the decade-old euro. Among short-term solutions is an ambitious pact to kickstart growth by injecting 130 billion euros ($163 billion) into floundering economies currently facing record unemployment of 11 percent. For the longer term, leaders will be asked to sign on to a roadmap toward tighter economic and monetary union over the next decade, the first step to a banking union to be agreed by the end of this year. That could satisfy German Chancellor Angela Merkel's calls for "more Europe, not less Europe". Under increasing pressure from her partners in the EU Big Four -- France, Germany, Italy andSpain -- Merkel warned on the eve of the talks that there were "no quick, no easy" solutions, no "magic formula" to end the crisis. She flew to Paris late Wednesday for talks with President Francois Hollande in an 11th-hour bid to bridge the gap between Europe's two biggest economies. "Unless France and Germany can soon agree on a grand bargain, disaster may loom," said analyst Charles Grant of the Centre for European Reform. Hollande has rejected Merkel's austerity-driven approach to solving the crisis and her insistence that budgetary discipline come before solidarity. In brief statements in Paris both leaders made conciliatory gestures: Hollande indicated he was ready to discuss further integration -- though France is loathe to cede sovereignty to Brussels -- while the German chancellor hailed measures to promote eurozone growth. The new French leader, along with Italy's Mario Monti, wants to use the eurozone's 500-billion-euro rescue pot to offer immediate help to Spain's distressed banks and to buy bonds of virtuous economies whose borrowing costs are soaring due to market pressure. But Merkel is firmly opposed to throwing money at struggling banks or poorly run economies. There will be no eurobonds, or pooling of European debt "as long as I'm alive", she said this week. But in Spain, the eurozone's fourth economy, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned that the country could not finance itself for long at the high rates it now pays on the markets. "There are institutions and also financial entities that cannot access the markets. It is happening in Spain, it is happening in Italy and it is happening in other countries," he said. Looking further ahead, EU president Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso will ask leaders to approve "building blocks" towards greater union. "We need a banking union, a fiscal union and further steps towards political union," Barroso said. The banking union would see the European Central Bank tasked with banking supervision across the 17-nation eurozone, with the London-headquartered European Banking Authority overseeing the sector in the 10 non-euro states. To reassure depositors and insure against bank runs, Brussels is suggesting Europe-wide guarantees on deposits. It also proposes a so-called "resolution" scheme to close down bad banks. Brussels suggests that its new rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) -- to come into being in July -- could act as the backstop to both the deposit guarantees and resolution authority. This would enable the ESM to directly prop up distressed banks, as Spain is currently requesting, and keep debt off sovereign books. But Berlin wants the loans to go through governments to have a say in how money is spent. Barroso on Tuesday called the simmering eurozone crisis "the biggest threat to all that we have achieved through European construction over the last 60 years. "Faced with this stark reality, standing still is not an option. A big leap forward is now needed."

arabstoday
arabstoday

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

all eyes on tense summit as euro crisis deepens all eyes on tense summit as euro crisis deepens

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

all eyes on tense summit as euro crisis deepens all eyes on tense summit as euro crisis deepens

 



GMT 12:48 2016 Sunday ,27 November

Cilic, Dodig push Croatia to brink of Davis Cup

GMT 05:24 2017 Thursday ,28 December

Erdogan says 'terrorist' Assad cannot be part of Syria

GMT 12:59 2016 Saturday ,05 November

WB welcomes economic reforms in Egypt

GMT 18:40 2016 Saturday ,05 November

Egyptian GDRs in London down

GMT 10:57 2017 Wednesday ,06 December

Peru striker Guerrero has doping ban extended

GMT 17:51 2017 Tuesday ,07 March

Trump Signs New Travel Ban on Six Muslim Countries

GMT 10:30 2017 Wednesday ,06 September

Saudi Information Ministry praises media role during Hajj

GMT 15:29 2017 Tuesday ,24 January

Mind games really do help your brain

GMT 06:55 2015 Thursday ,01 October

Boston Red Sox beat Yankees

GMT 08:17 2017 Monday ,28 August

Bahrain celebrates World Humanitarian Day 2017

GMT 02:07 2017 Tuesday ,28 February

Opposition seeks Russian support at Syria talks
Arab Today, arab today
 
 Arab Today Facebook,arab today facebook  Arab Today Twitter,arab today twitter Arab Today Rss,arab today rss  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
arabstoday, Arabstoday, Arabstoday