Debt Crisis: Italy and Spain Threaten to Block ‘Everything’ at Tense EU Summit
David Cameron left the Brussels summit at 1am local time, with nine other non-euro EU leaders as the 17 other eurozone member states continued in an emergency session to try and overcome the deadlock.
Spain and Italy blocked a flagship €120 billion “growth pact” as Mario Monti, the Italian Prime Minister, warned that there would be gridlock unless the EU mobilised its bailout funds to underwrite Italian and Spanish bonds.
As talks dragged on into the early hours of today, without any progress on long-term solution to fix the eurozone crisis, Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council of EU leaders, tried to play down the deepest splits since the European debt crisis erupted two years ago.
“There are two countries who are very keen to make sure that there is an agreement both on the long term measures and on the short term measures, but I wouldn’t say there was any blockage,” he insisted late on Thursday night.
During a bad-tempered summit, Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel clashed over the pleas from Italy and Spain with Gremany dismissing their fears as “scaremongering” by allies.