Greek debt casts shadow on EU summit

Quotes

Ferry Biedermann, The National (UAE), 31.01.2012

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European leaders meeting in Brussels yesterday for their first summit of 2012 struggled to shake off the atmosphere of crisis that dogged the continent last year. […]

The leaders were set to approve a set of mandatory rules for limiting national deficits - a so-called fiscal pact insisted on mainly by Germany. The pact had been announced at the last EU summit in December and was touted as a way of reassuring the financial markets.

But Janis Emmanouilidis of the European Policy Centre in Brussels emphasised the political importance of the pact for getting Germany to fund more of the EU's growth measures. "The real importance of this treaty cannot show itself today, or when it will be signed, but it is the political importance of the treaty that matters," he said. […]

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