[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD][release][SUB][SUP][URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/world/europe/europe-in-accord-on-basics-of-plan-to-save-the-euro.html?ref=global-home]nytimes.com[/URL][/SUP][/SUB]
[b]BRUSSELS[/b] — European leaders, in a significant step toward resolving the euro zone financial crisis, won an agreement from banks early Thursday to take a 50 percent loss on the face value of their Greek debt. The agreement was crucial to assembling a comprehensive package to protect the euro, which has emerged as a new source of global economic anxiety and has been keeping jittery financial markets on edge.
The markets rallied strongly on the news of the accord, which was achieved after nearly 10 hours of negotiations by European leaders, finance ministers and bankers at an emergency meeting in Brussels. Stocks rose 6 percent in France, 5.1 percent in Germany and 3.3 percent in Hong Kong. On Wall Street, shares surged 2 percent at the opening bell. The value of the euro, which cost $1.32 a few weeks ago when anxiety over its future stability was worsening, surged to $1.40 in European foreign exchange trading on Thursday.
Hopes were also boosted by the possibility that Russia and even China, which has amassed enormous amounts of capital in its historic economic climb over the years, would play an active role in helping with Europe’s financial rescue. President Nicholas Sarkozy of France spoke to his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, on Thursday, although there was no word on precisely what was discussed, and the top executive of the euro zone’s emergency bailout fund was scheduled to visit China on Friday.
Still, the optimism and relief that washed over the markets in the aftermath of the European announcement of the package obscured a host of technical questions about its implementation that have yet to be addressed. How those questions are dealt with, European officials and bankers said, could determine whether the Europeans have truly begun to restore confidence in the battered euro currency zone.
The accord was reached just before 4 a.m. after difficult bargaining. The severe reduction would bring Greek debt from its current level of 180 percent of gross domestic product down to 120 percent by 2020, a still enormous figure but more sustainable for an economy driven into recession by austerity measures.
The leaders agreed on Wednesday on a plan to force the Continent’s banks to raise new capital to insulate them from potential sovereign debt defaults, and to more than double the lending capacity of their emergency bailout fund to $1.4 trillion in order to better protect Italy and Spain.
[/release]
[/TD]
[TD][release][img_thumb]http://www2.2space.net/images/upl_news/110624/1308948009.jpg[/img_thumb]
[SUB][I]Prime Minister George Papandreou of Greece spoke during a news conference with Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos of Greece, held at the end of a euro zone summit in Brussels on Thursday.[/I][/SUB][/release][TABLE="width: 401, align: right"]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
