World presses EU summit for lasting euro remedy

The G-20 summit of to a great start if you like fireworks, endless bickering, and finger-pointing. Otherwise these summits are totally useless. When asked by a Canadian journalist "Why should North Americans risk their assets to help Europe?" EC President José Barroso replied "Frankly, we are not here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy.

A story is making the rounds that suggests leaders are going to get together and hammer out a "fiscal union". The story appears to have originated on the Welt Online, a German tabloid. The article mentions a Secret Plan for a New Europe.

Chinese and European Union leaders will gather Tuesday for a summit likely to be dominated by Europe's debt crisis, as Beijing considers stepping in to help resolve the continent's financial woes.Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will meet EU president Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso in Beijing, in talks that may also touch on Syria, Iran and a controversial EU tax on airlines.

Dr. Doom got it wrong. The parade of economists and investors led by Nouriel Roubini predicting Greece’s ejection by now from the eurozone failed to appreciate the resolve of European policy makers to protect their union and the amount of pain Greeks are willing to stomach.

Incoming EU president Herman Van Rompuy kept a low profile as the 27-nation bloc's leaders faced flak for picking him and a little-known British peer to lead a revamped Europe on the world stage.Van Rompuy, the outgoing Belgian premier chosen to become the first European Union president at a summit Thursday, met with his cabinet and King Albert II to start the process of finding a successor, without talking to the press.However the world's press were talking about him and the second member of the EU's new dream team, incoming foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

China heads for a potentially divisive summit with Europe on Wednesday as Brussels raises demands for improved conditions with its second-largest trade partner and presses for a revaluation of the Chinese currency.The EU-China meeting follows an EU-South Korea summit the same day marked by the signing of a historic free trade pact, the first in a possible slew that Europe hopes to seal with Asia."Trade liberalisation," said EU president Herman Van Rompuy at the signing ceremony, "is key to the recovery of the world economy."