EU summit confirmed amid financial turmoil
Thursday, 02 Oct 2008 11:01
EU seeks response to global financial crisis
European leaders will meet this weekend in Paris to discuss the global financial crisis, it has been confirmed.
An emergency summit had previously been pencilled in for the weekend and has now been confirmed for Saturday.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy will chair the meeting as his country holds the EU's rotating presidency. His government is now downplaying a call for an EU-wide rescue package similar to that currently being considered by the US Congress.
The €300 billion (£237 billion) bailout plan would make funds available to shore up banks crippled by restricted interbank lending.
But in the face of opposition from Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel, who will attend alongside British prime minister Gordon Brown and Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi, it now appears to be being dropped.
Others attending, the Associated Press news agency reports, include Luxembourg's prime minister, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and the chief of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet.