New Plan Aims to End European Debt Crisis
09 December 2011
EU heads of state stand for a group photo at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday. But deep divisions on the future of Europe remain.
This is IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.
Most members of the European Union have agreed to a deal to increase central control over the budgets of individual governments. The plan to increase economic ties was announced Friday at a meeting of European leaders in the Belgian capital, Brussels.
European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi praised the agreement.
MARIO DRAGHI: "It's a very good outcome for the euro area, very good. It's quite close to a good fiscal compact, and certainly it's going to be a basis for a much more disciplined economic policy for euro-area members, and certainly it's going to be helpful in the present situation."
All seventeen countries that share the euro currency agreed to the deal. All together, twenty-three of the twenty-seven European Union nations agreed to it. EU president Herman van Rumpoy said three more members are considering it. That would leave Britain as the only country against the plan.
HERMAN VON RUMPOY: "Our preference went to a full-fledged treaty change with the twenty-seven, changing the treaties of the European Union. We tried it, but because there was not a unanimous decision, we have to take another decision."
The plan is an effort to solve the debt problems that have threatened the euro and driven Europe into an economic crisis.
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