Brussels Dec. 9 (SPS) - European leaders are gathering in Brussels for a critical end-of-year summit, another attempt to resolve a sovereign debt and banking crisis threatening the very future of the euro currency union. Pressure is on for them to come out with a definitive deal this time around, after what critics claim are months of half-measures.
This is not the first time a European Union summit has been described as the last chance to save the struggling euro currency union. But the 27 EU leaders gathering Thursday and Friday in Brussels face extraordinary pressure, at home and abroad,to deliver a lasting solution to the two-year-old eurozone crisis.
The plan on the table is authored by Europe's two biggest economies, France and Germany. They want to overhaul EU treaties to forge a more binding and fiscally responsible eurozone. The two leaders outlined the details of their vision on Wednesday, in a letter to EU President Herman van Rompuy.
At a joint press conference with his German counterpart Angela Merkel earlier this week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the crisis has given the two countries an extra reason for unity. He said both countries envision the same kind of Europe.
But their plan must still be accepted by the other 25 EU members or at very least, the 17 members of the eurozone. And that, says analyst Philippe Moreau Defarges, of the French Institute of International Relations, is not at all certain. (SPS)
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