BELGIUM: French President Francois Hollande says 27 EU members agree on growth pact but Italy, Spain to sign later

Record ID: 861957

  • Title: BELGIUM: French President Francois Hollande says 27 EU members agree on growth pact but Italy, Spain to sign later
  • Date: 30th June 2012
  • Summary: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JUNE 29, 2012) (REUTERS) VARIOUS EXTERIORS OF EUROPEAN COUNCIL BUILDING BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (JUNE 29, 2012) (REUTERS) NEWS CONFERENCE UNDERWAY
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • City:
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: International Relations,Economy,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8HPF8ZVRMT0NP9GLZ8KS0AJEI
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: With talks entering the small hours of Friday (June 29), divisions remained between EU leaders gathered at a two-day summit in Brussels as Spain and Italy manouevred to have short-term measures to ease their countries' financial positions put on the agenda for Friday's meeting.
    Some EU council sources had said that Italy and Spain were reluctant to sign up the 120 billion euro growth package agreed by leaders without measures to calm markets and lower bond yields.
    But French President Francois Hollande said at a news conference that all 27 members had agreed the growth pact, although Italy and Spain had not wanted to sign up formally until all discussions at the summit had been concluded.
    "An agreement was found among the 27, even if Italy and Spain wanted to wait until the summit had given all its conclusions before they announced that, even though I know it's not that element that's causing difficulties," he said.
    He did, however, add that Italy and Spain were keen to have short-term measures to ease borrowing costs on the agenda for the following day.
    "It was pressure from Spain and Italy so that there was work planned to examine quickly the short-term measures to be taken to stabilise the markets," he said.
    He went on to add that Spain had asked for direct bank recapitalisations whilst Italy was seeking measures to bring down bond yields.
    Leaders from the 17 euro zone countries re-entered talks which are expected to continue into the night.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register