October 12, 2011Euro-Zone Leaders Summit Postponed Until Oct 23
Brussels, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy announced Monday that the upcoming summit of European Union and euro-zone heads of state will be postponed by a week until October 23, in a move signaling the region's leaders are struggling to design a comprehensive crisis response.
The summits were originally supposed to happen back-to-back next week, with EU leaders gathering on October 17 and euro-zone heads of government picking up the baton on October 18.
"I have decided to convene the European Council & the Eurozone Summit on Sunday, 23 Oct. 2011. Press statement to follow," Van Rompuy said on his Twitter account. The statement added no further details.
Continues ...read more ..
The change in timings comes just a week after euro-zone finance ministers had to scrap a planned October 13 decision on whether to make a fresh loan disbursement to Greece and as European officials seek to convince investors they are finally poised to take decisive action to stem the spreading crisis.
Over the weekend, the French and German leaders met and promised a plan to sort out the region's banks following the crisis at Franco-Belgian bank Dexia. Van Rompuy himself is due to present later this month a plan to better coordinate the way the euro-zone handles the crisis and communicates its decisions.
An EU official with knowledge of the situation told Dow Jones Newswires Monday that postponing the summits was deemed necessary to allow for more time for the European Commission and International Monetary Fund to consider their recommendations for Greece.
The so-called troika of lenders, the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank, are due to conclude their Athens visit Monday. Based on this report, European leaders and the IMF will decide whether to give the latest EUR8 billion loan tranche to Greece.
The rescheduling of the summit will allow extra time for deliberations on a European plan for bank recapitalization. The European Commission will use this time to float its own proposals on this, the EU official said.
It will give France and Germany much-needed time to come up with joint proposals on ways of maximizing the firepower of the region's bailout mechanism, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). France has joined a chorus of EU and U.S. officials pushing for ways to step up the support the EFSF can offer but German officials have been much more cautious and ruled out the idea of fresh funds for the EFSF.
Over the weekend, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said they will present a "comprehensive package" of measures to deal with the crisis in euro-zone banking and government bonds by the end of this month. However few details were given and the two governments said they needed to hold confidential talks in coming days.
link
