EU summit: Live blog

EU summit: Live blog

Press quote (Financial Times)
28 June 2012

Charles Grant, the director for the CER has blogged ahead of the summit, a good primer for anyone wondering what's at stake. "Like many other EU summits over the past two years, the European Council meeting in Brussels on June 28th and 29th has been billed as a 'last chance' to save the euro. With the situation in Greece, Spain and Italy causing alarm, EU leaders should present a credible plan to convince financial markets that they are serious about saving the euro. They are unlikely to do so. Although there will probably be other last chances, time is starting to run out. Unless France and Germany can soon agree on a grand bargain, disaster may loom. Not only France but also Italy, Spain, the European Commission, the IMF and the Obama administration are urging Germany to accept 'eurobonds' (collective eurozone borrowing), bigger bail-out funds that can intervene in sovereign bond markets and a 'banking union' that would include common deposit insurance and bank recapitalisation schemes. For now, however, Chancellor Angela Merkel is not budging."