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European leaders have agreed to press on with further steps to tackle their debt crisis. as they finished their last summit of the year. But despite major compromises, the agenda ahead is going to require more and greater efforts.
After months of bitter debate, European Union countries finally reached two crucial agreements on Thursday: They decided to give Greece desperately needed bailout funds.
Greece will get 49.1 billion euros between now and March, with 34.3 billion euros due in the coming days.
The deal is also vital for the other 16 eurozone countries. Disagreement over how to handle Greece had raised fears that a default would bring down the entire currency union.
The leaders also found a compromise to create a single supervisor for their banks. It’s a significant step toward curbing the lenders’ power to ruin the finances of governments.
Banking rules are written by the European Banking Authority for all 27 EU nations. But the supervisor will only cover banks in the eurozone and other countries that want to sign up.
Herman Van Rompuy, European Council President, said, "This was a very positive European Council meeting, which ended a year where the European Union has covered a lot of ground and which mapped out the way forward for the next year."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that the bloc faces a long, hard slog to clean up public finances and revive growth.
Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, said, "For the next year, we will have very low growth rates, we will see negative growth in some countries, and we can expect very high unemployment levels to continue, that means that the political burden during these processes of change will be felt next year, and even in the coming years."
One issue the EU leaders will have to work on next year is how to set up a single resolution mechanism for banks in trouble. EU leaders agreed that it should be based on contributions by the financial sector itself and include "appropriate and effective backstop arrangements".
But accumulating enough money from bank fees could take years.
The Leaders also plan to create a "solidarity fund" to help member states suffering one-off economic shocks. But they did not delve deeply into either issue, pushing the debate out to the middle of next year.
中国公共新闻摘编：GAN JADE |
