Agreement on measures to support Greece

Crisis talks held on economic help for battered Greek economy.

The presidents of the European Commission and European Council have reached an agreement with France and Germany on measures that should be taken to support the Greek economy, it was announced this afternoon.

The announcement followed a two-hour meeting in the Brussels headquarters of the Council of Ministers between Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, and George Papandreou, Greece’s prime minister.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the Eurogroup, the finance ministers of the eurozone, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of Ministers, also attended the crisis talks, which formed a prelude to this afternoon’s informal meeting of the European Council, being held in the nearby Bibliothèque Solvay.

“We are on our way to the Bibliothèque Solvay where we will explain the accord that was reached,” said Van Rompuy, but he declined to give details of the deal.

An official said that the meeting had comprised several smaller gatherings, among them a one-to-one discussion between Sarkozy and Merkel, a meeting between Van Rompuy and Zapatero, and a meeting between Barroso, Van Rompuy and Trichet.

Global stockmarkets are looking to the summit to see what degree of support is offered by the EU to Greece, whose battered public finances have promoted serious concerns among investors as to the stability of the eurozone. These concerns have promoted sharp falls on the markets and in the value of the euro.

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