AMERCA and China, the world’s two economic superpowers, have again urged EU leaders to resolve the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis and prevent the world from sliding into another slump.
As it emerged that no decisions would be taken by European leaders until an unprecedented second eurozone summit next Wednesday, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao told EU leaders to stop the debt crisis spreading and lectured them on the need for structural reform.
His outspoken comments, in a phone call with Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, came after Brussels cancelled an EU-China summit planned for Wednesday and hours after Barack Obama had a transatlantic video conference call with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Wen told Van Rompuy: “The most urgent task is to take decisive measures to prevent the debt crisis spreading further and avoid financial market turbulence, a recession and fluctuations in the euro.”
Britain’s finance minister, George Osborne, said before the meeting of the 27 EU finance ministers: “The coming days will be critical for resolving the crisis in the eurozone. I am convinced of everyone’s commitment to this. A resolution to the eurozone crisis would be the biggest boost to growth in Britain and around the world.”
But Europe’s leaders continued to feud in public and private over the reasons for twice delaying final decisions, with France and Germany still at loggerheads over fundamental issues and Italy and Spain, let alone Greece, under severe pressure to fix their budgets as all of them slash economic growth forecasts for 2012.
Arriving for a meeting of eurogroup finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, the group’s chairman and veteran Luxembourg premier, admitted that the outside impression given by the EU was “disastrous”. He said: “It does not appear a bright example of superior statesmanship.”
On the uppermost floor of the Berlaymont, the European Commission’s HQ, the talk was of how Merkel and Sarkozy had in effect sabotaged the summit by insisting on taking all the decisions themselves. “Previously, 90 per cent of decisions were taken before the summit, and now everything has to be decided at the summit table.”
Merkel was accused of failing to realise until it was too late that too much work remained to be done to ensure a successful summit. But in Berlin government sources attacked foot dragging by senior officials preparing the dossiers, including a key report on the sustainability of Greek debt.
— The Guardian, London
