This all feels rather miserably familiar. Eurozone leaders come to a dawn agreement about resolving the crisis. Markets react positively. The leaders appear on podiums to congratulate one another and themselves on reaching said dawn agreement. By lunchtime, something rather awkward has happened.
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Martin Narey
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Angela Merkel, perhaps inspired by George Osborne, had done a U-turn in agreeing to use eurozone bailout funds to support Italy and Spain, but did she have the authority to do so?
In Germany, ahead of a vote in the Bundestag to approve the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund and new budget rules, the largest opposition party, the SPD, has called an emergency meeting of the budget committee to demand that Ms Merkel explain her ‘turn through 180 degrees’ to give banks direct access to the ESM.
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