EU leaders kicked off the last summit of a crisis-hit year to thrash out the euro’s future in a bullish mood after clinching deals on banks and Greece yesterday, despite fears over Italy’s politics.
As video showed the bloc’s 27 leaders smiling and joking with each other as the summit opened, EU President Herman Van Rompuy said they should aim to cap a triumphant week that began with the European Union picking up the Nobel Peace Prize.
“We started the week well in Oslo. Let’s finish it well here in Brussels with a further positive outcome,” Van Rompuy said.
“The worst is now behind us, but of course much still needs to be done,” he added as the leaders began deliberations on how to make the 17-nation eurozone more stable after a crippling three-year crisis.
The hero of the day was Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti, hailed for tough reforms that have brought Italy back from the brink of financial collapse but who announced last weekend he would be stepping down.
“Confidence has been returning in Italy’s capacity to solve problems,” said European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. “Let me praise Mario Monti and his government for this.”
At the talks, leaders are debating a report drawn up by Van Rompuy that proposes steps towards greater economic integration in the eurozone, eventually with a common “fiscal capacity” and binding reform commitments.
Following on the heels of a summit only last month that collapsed over the EU’s seven-year budget, the atmosphere was noticeably brighter after ministers sealed much-heralded agreements on supervising big banks and aid to Greece. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras exclaimed that “Grexit is dead”, meaning the prospect of Greece leaving the euro currency area was no longer possible after ministers released bailout funds to avert bankruptcy.
After a buy-back programme designed to reduce Greece’s debt mountain, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker said a first payment of €34.3 billion would be flowing to Athens “as early as next week.”
This instalment would go to help recapitalise Greece’s crisis-wracked banks, to be followed by another €14.8 billion in the first quarter of next year.