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Europe seeks way out of financial storm

PARIS: European leaders looked set to cobble together a response to the global financial crisis at a mini-summit on Saturday despite disagreements that killed off talk of a Europe-wide bailout package. French President Nicolas Sarkozy scrapped a scheduled address to a gathering of young apprentices on Friday to lay the groundwork for the Paris meeting with leaders of Britain, Italy and Germany. “The president has been making a series of telephone calls to several European heads of states to very carefully prepare the meeting,” said Trade Minister Herve Novelli. European leaders are hoping to forge a common position on how to tackle the financial storm sparked by the US banking crisis ahead of the Group of Eight meeting of finance ministers in Washington next week. But summit preparations ran into trouble when Germany flatly rejected an idea floated by France for a 300-billion-euro European fund to shore up troubled banks. Both Germany and Britain have been reluctant to commit their taxpayers’ money to a Europe-managed fund and instead advocate a case-by-case approach to rescuing financial institutions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown only confirmed they would attend after France made clear it would not push for a fund mirroring the $700-billion US bailout plan. afp

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